Located in northern New Mexico, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is primarily responsible for monitoring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and conducting research into new defense programs. It is a center for research in a wide range of scientific disciplines, including space exploration, geophysics, renewable energy, supercomputing, medicine, and nanotechnology.

The Computer, Computational, and Statistical Sciences (CCS) Division is a vibrant scientific research and development organization working in multiple mission areas of Los Alamos National Laboratory, including energy and climate programs, basic science and technology research programs, computing programs, information science and technology, and the nuclear weapons program. The division is comprised of scientists (85% PhD) focused on impactful research and development in fundamental computer science, computational physics, algorithms, high-performance computing, statistics, and applied mathematics. CCS Division bridges the computational sciences that are central to scientific discovery and innovation with external partners and laboratory programs to solve complex and fundamental problems ranging from metagenomics to nuclear energy.

The Computational Physics Group, CCS-2, seeks a postdoctoral researcher in the areas of computational fluid dynamics, numerical methods, and ocean model development.  The position is within the Climate, Ocean, and Sea Ice Modeling Team (COSIM), which develops model components for climate change research on high-performance computing platforms. 

The postdoctoral research topic is the implementation of high-order advection schemes within the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS), a newly developed unstructured-mesh climate model framework that includes ocean, atmosphere, sea-ice, and land-ice components.  Responsibilities include:

·         The design, coding, and testing of advection algorithms on unstructured meshes.  This involves high-order reconstruction of variables on arbitrarily shaped polygon cells;

·         Preservation of monotonicity and local bounds through limiters;

·         And ensuring computational efficiency when scaling to thousands of cores.

·         The position will include validation and further applications in ocean, sea-ice, and ocean bio-geo-chemical model components.

A successful candidate is expected to work effectively with their mentors in the following areas:

·         Computational methods and algorithms research;

·          Documentation and publication in peer-reviewed journals;

·         Climate model design and development within a software team environment;

·          Improving code efficiency for high-performance computers on modern architectures;

·         Ocean model simulation and data analysis.

 Minimum Job Requirements

·         Expertise in computational fluid dynamics, algorithm design, and scientific model development;

·          Ability to publish in peer-reviewed literature in computational physics;

·          Excellent interpersonal, written, and oral communication skills;

·          Advanced and extensive knowledge of general numerical algorithms;

·          Strong ability to analyze and provide creative solutions for technically complex problems;

·          Programming experience with C, C++, or Fortran for scientific applications.

Desired Skills

·         Advanced knowledge and experience with high-order discretization and advection methods;

·         Experience with parallel programming;

·         Experience with unstructured-mesh CFD models;

·         Experience in geophysical fluid dynamics, climate model components, or fluid dynamics simulations.

Education:  PhD in related field completed within the past five years or soon to be completed.

Notes to Applicants:  In addition to applying on-line, interested candidates should send their resumes including a brief description of their research interests to Rob Lowrie at Lowrie@lanl.gov, Mark Petersen at mpetersen@lanl.gov  or Matthew Hecht at mhecht@lanl.gov.

Pre-Employment Drug Test: The Laboratory requires successful applicants to complete a pre-employment drug test and maintains a substance abuse policy that includes random drug testing. 

Equal Opportunity:

Los Alamos National Laboratory is an equal opportunity employer and supports a diverse and inclusive workforce. All employment practices are based on qualification and merit, without regards to race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or preference, marital status or spousal affiliation, physical or mental disability, medical conditions, pregnancy, status as a protected veteran, genetic information, or citizenship within the limits imposed by federal laws and regulations.  The Laboratory is also committed to making our workplace accessible to individuals with disabilities and will provide reasonable accommodations, upon request, for individuals to participate in the application and hiring process. To request such an accommodation, please send an email to applyhelp@lanl.gov or call 1-505-665-5627.