Lead Materials Scientist - Ceramic Reliability
Electrified Thermal Solutions
Medford, MA, USA
Posted on Wednesday, April 10, 2024
About Electrified Thermal Solutions
Boilers, furnaces, and kilns are the engines of our industrial economy, providing heat to melt steel, form cement, and transform chemicals. But historically reaching this high-temperature heat required burning fossil fuels, making the industrial sector responsible for 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Electrified Thermal Solutions has a simple and massive goal: to electrify industry.
To do this, we are building the Joule Hive™ thermal battery: an energy storage technology that converts and stores cheap, renewable electricity as high-temperature heat. Our vision is to mitigate gigatons of CO2 emissions per year by deploying the Joule Hive™ at every industrial furnace, turbine, boiler, and kiln.
We are grateful for the support from the US DOE ARPA-E, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Activate, National Science Foundation, Clean Energy Ventures, Starlight Ventures, and the Grantham Foundation.
About The Role
We are seeking a Lead Materials Scientist with a specialization in ceramic materials. The successful candidate will be responsible for designing and managing experiments, conducting detailed analytics on aging mechanisms of thermal, mechanical, and electrical properties and their relationships to microstructure. You will lead efforts within both internal and external teams to extract material properties to inform product design. This role is a key part of our team, helping to achieve our mission of electrifying industry.
What You'll Do at ETS
- Assess the durability of stacked refractory circuits based on operational conditions, postmortem analysis, and supporting experiments.
- Design & lead accelerated lifetime campaigns to extract statistically relevant property data and mechanistic parameters for lifetime prediction.
- Characterize thermo-mechanical-electrical properties of select materials.
- Characterize material microstructure including composition, phase, and grain information utilizing techniques like x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy (XRD, SEM, EDS), and Raman spectroscopy
- Correlate microstructural relationships with mass diffusion, thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and electrical properties of refractory materials.
- Review literature for refractory material degradation mechanisms and develop robust lifetime models toward optimizing material performance.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams, both within the organization and with external partners, to fabricate materials, extract their properties, and communicate implications to product design.
What You'll Bring to ETS
- A PhD in Materials science or related field
- At least 2 years working within or alongside industry developing or evaluating refractory materials
- Experience extracting and evaluating process-structure-property relationships, correlating microstructural features with critical properties like mass diffusion, thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and electrical behavior.
- Proficiency in acquiring and analyzing XRD, SEM, EDS, and Raman spectroscopy of ceramics.
- Experience designing and executing accelerated lifetime test campaigns to extract statistically relevant property data for lifetime predictions, such S-N fatigue curves and Weibull Modulus for strength of ceramics.
- Experience using data analytics to extract & model material characteristics such as diffusion coefficients and activation energy, using programs or languages like R or JMP.
- Ability to maintain timeline and stay within budget for experimental campaigns that extract key performance metrics that are tied to company milestones.
- Experience leveraging team member’s expertise to identify and execute on key deliverables that advance the company objectives
What We Offer
- Competitive compensation package, including equity options
- Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance
- 401(k) with matching
- 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave, with an additional two weeks for birthing parents, after 6 months
- 20 days of annual PTO
- Approximately 17 days paid company holidays per year (varies based on calendar year)
- Access to commuter benefits with company contributions
What We Value
As a growing startup, we value executing through uncertainty and moving toward the problem. We also recognize that structure is support and adheres to processes to keep us safe and make us effective. ETS can only achieve our goals if we go together, and value and proactively draw on the diverse backgrounds, skill sets, and perspectives of our growing team. Each day, we work to live sustainably, not only to build a sustainable future but also to create an environment where our employees lead full multi-dimensional lives.
ETS believes people are the catalyst for success and seeks those with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to maximize our impact. We know great solutions and innovation can come from anywhere and prioritize hiring people with the ability to work on diverse teams and with a diverse range of people. ETS is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and work environment and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.