Two postdoctoral positions are available, based at the University of Southampton, on a project developing methods for autonomous materials discovery. The project is funded by the European Research Council Synergy grant scheme and brings together computational methods for crystal structure prediction and property prediction with robotics and automation in the lab, through collaboration with the Universities of Liverpool and Rostock. The project is focused on organic molecular materials.

One position is available for a Research Fellow, funded for up to 4 years. You will develop methods for crystal structure prediction of organic molecules, building on methods developed in Prof. Graeme Day's research group. As well as method development, the research fellow will pursue applications in the discovery of porous materials and materials for photocatalysis. Calculations involve both force field methods and electronic structure calculations, used within global structure searching algorithms.

applications should be made through: https://jobs.soton.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=1266820EB 

A second position is available at the level of Senior Research Fellow or Research Fellow, depending on experience, and is available for up to 6 years. The research fellow will have a leading role in development of predictive computational methods, and working with collaborating research groups on integration of computational methods with automation in the materials chemistry labs. A part of the role is also the development of evolutionary methods and other generative approaches for exploration of new molecules.

applications should be made through: https://jobs.soton.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=1266920EB 

Excellent computational skills are required, along with excellent communications skills (both written and oral), and a desire and ability to work as part of an interdisciplinary research team. 

Related work can be found in:

Functional materials discovery using energy-structure-function maps, Nature 2017, 543, p657–664

Evolutionary chemical space exploration for functional materials: computational organic semiconductor discovery, Chemical Science 2020,11, 4922-4933

Large-Scale Computational Screening of Molecular Organic Semiconductors using Crystal Structure Prediction, Chemistry of Materials 2018, 30, 4361–4371

Photocatalytic proton reduction by a computationally identified, molecular hydrogen bonded framework, J. Mater. Chem. A 2020,8, 7158-7170

For further information please contact Prof. Graeme Day ([email protected])