SCIENTIST 2 $104,100 - $172,200

XCP-5 is seeking highly motivated early- to mid-career candidates to develop higher fidelity nuclear data libraries to be used primarily in simulations for stockpile stewardship and global security applications. Considerable effort is underway at LANL and elsewhere to improve the measurements of relevant data, the theory used to describe these reactions, the uncertainties in both, and understand their impact on these applications. The successful candidate will work with these communities, both nationally and internationally, to help develop, implement and validate new physics models, new data libraries and support their use.

TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE

Demonstrated scientific achievement in one or more of the following related fields: nuclear physics, nuclear engineering, nuclear data evaluations, and/or nuclear data experiments.

ADDITIONAL JOB REQUIREMENTS FOR SCIENTIST 3:

In addition to the requirements outlined above, qualification at the higher level requires:

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• A degree in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering.
• Post-doctoral research experience at a university or national lab or equivalent experience directly related to the occupation.
• Proficiency in using nuclear data processing codes (e.g., NJOY) to build and verify application libraries.
• In-depth knowledge of neutron transport codes (e.g., MCNP, PARTISN) to perform neutronics simulation analysis and validation.
• Understanding of and experience with nuclear data formats, e.g., ENDF, GNDS, ACE.
• Experience with modern software development process and tools, high performance computing (HPC), numerical methods, algorithms, and user support.
• Knowledge of statistical methods such as Machine Learning or Artificial Intelligence.
• Experience in uncertainty quantification related to nuclear data evaluations or forward-propagation of these uncertainties to applications.
  Work Environment:
  Work Location: The work location for this position is onsite and located in Los Alamos, NM. All work locations are at the discretion of management.
  Position commitment: Regular appointment employees are required to serve a period of continuous service in their current position in order to be eligible to apply for posted jobs throughout the Laboratory. If an employee has not served the time required, they may only apply for Laboratory jobs with the documented approval of their Division Leader. The position commitment for this position is 1 year.
  Note to Applicants:
  Due to federal restrictions contained in the current National Defense Authorization Act, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, and the Russian Federation, who are not Lawful Permanent Residents ("green card” holders) are prohibited from accessing facilities that support the mission, functions, and operations of national security laboratories and nuclear weapons production facilities, which includes Los Alamos National Laboratory.
  Applicants should submit a CV/resume and a detailed cover letter describing how they meet the required and desired qualifications for this position. We welcome a broad pool of candidates from a diverse background. For more information or questions please contact: Abigail Hunter (ahunter@lanl.gov) and/or Nathan Gibson (ngibson@lanl.gov )

THIS POSITION WILL BE FILLED AT EITHER THE SCIENTIST 2 OR SCIENTIST 3 LEVEL, DEPENDING ON THE SKILLS OF THE SELECTED CANDIDATE. ADDITIONAL JOB RESPONSIBILITIES (OUTLINED BELOW) WILL BE ASSIGNED IF THE CANDIDATE IS HIRED AT THE HIGHER LEVEL.

The Materials and Physical Data group (XCP-5) in the Computational Physics Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is an interdisciplinary group which develops, implements, and validates constitutive models (material strength, damage and failure, etc.), equations of state (EOS), and physical data libraries including opacities and nuclear cross sections for use in large-scale simulation codes; additionally, some group members collaborate in the design and analysis of small-scale and integral validation experiments for material models and physical data. XCP-5 offers an exciting, flexible, scientifically challenging work environment with many opportunities to collaborate with the broader LANL scientific community. We are currently seeking highly motivated candidates to join our nuclear data team.
The nuclear data team in XCP-5 performs a wide range of activities along the nuclear data pipeline, from evaluations of nuclear data, their processing, their validation through the use of open and protected integral benchmarks, the creation of continuous-energy and multi-group data libraries for a range of applications, and the development and/or modernization of computing tools (e.g., NJOY21) to perform all the complex operations that sustain this pipeline. The nuclear data team works closely with other teams at the laboratory (e.g., MCNP®, PARTISN, nuclear theory and data evaluators, LANSCE for neutron-induced experiments, radiochemists, integral benchmarks experimentalists, statisticians and AI/ML experts, and many others) to apply novel techniques to nuclear data problems, and also interact with and support nuclear data users. Team members are very active in participating and leading various national and international efforts through organizations such as the Cross Section Evaluation Working Group (CSEWG), the Nuclear Data Working Group (NDWG/WANDA), the OECD-NEA/WPEC, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), etc., and continually foster connections to universities to mentor students.