Note: This position listing pertains to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA supporting and assisting a candidate in applying for the US Dept of Energy Sunshot Fellowship program. The fellowship must be confirmed by Sunshot after applying. Candidates must meet program guidelines, e.g., be a US citizen or permanent resident. More details are present here: http://energy.gov/eere/education/eligibility

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Realizing a sustainable energy future is one of the most important problems facing our society. Fluids capable of capturing, retaining, and releasing heat have broad applications in large-scale and affordable solar power, in waste heat recovery, in energy-efficient home heating and cooling, and in efficient heat transfer.

This project will explore novel chemical storage technologies guided by new principles for thermal storage. The approach will involve exploring new classes of organic reactions ideally suited for reversible thermal storage through computation and simulation. A mix of methods (primarily DFT but also molecular dynamics) will be used to predict completely new formulations of fluids capable of reversibly storing large amounts of thermal energy. An emphasis will be placed on high-throughput screening methods, i.e., using large supercomputers to compute the properties of tens of thousands of candidate formulations and performing data analysis to determine solutions and design principles.

This is an interdisciplinary project requiring a range of skills,

* Ph.D. in related field (ideally chemistry or chemical engineering)

* Expert in organic chemistry

* Expert in molecular DFT methods (e.g., Gaussian) with several papers published in this field

* Experience with molecular dynamics (e.g., LAMMPs) methods a plus

* High aptitude and desire for programming and building software infrastructure

* Experience with networking, Unix, and running/scaling at supercomputing centers

* Prior ability or desire to learn large scale data analysis / data mining

Please note that we will not be pursuing applicants whose primary background is in solid state methods or inorganic chemistry for this proposal (such applications will not be considered). Interested applicants should contact Anubhav Jain (ajain *at* lbl.gov) with their CV and a brief statement of interest.