Project Scientist position (Fusion Energy)

Fusion Energy represents one of the grand challenges for humankind, offering the prospect of limitless baseload electricity, an inherently safe configuration, with no significant greenhouse gases or nuclear waste. As a thriving fusion industry develops multiple promising concepts for fusion, it is vital to look ahead to solutions for continuous energy production.

Thus, UCLA seeks to pioneer the steady state tokamak as a concept in its own right, and as a tensioner to drive the development of the many constituent science and engineering components of the challenge, that will drive broader benefits to the fusion field. To this end, UCLA is establishing a Fusion Simulation Center to develop concepts for a compact fusion power plant that integrates foundational discovery plasma science, fusion science and engineering.

The explicit goal is the development of robust and cost-effective configurations for fusion in steady state, as well as innovative approaches and advanced solutions in each of the technical fields and systems comprising a power plant. This work will thus serve as an integrating focus of a very broad range of activities across Engineering and Science at UCLA from energy extraction, blanket design, tritium breeding, and materials development to fundamental plasma science and efficient energy confining plasma configurations.

Thus, the Department of Physics & Astronomy at UCLA seeks outstanding candidates for a full-time (100%) position as an Assistant, Associate or Full Project Scientist (dependent on experience) in the area of Fusion Simulation.

Key responsibilities

• Assembling and running integrated fusion device simulation suites, and providing these to collaborative partners in the university and beyond. Such suites will range from simplified, rapid-to-run codes to those that use state of art frontier computing tools.
• Using such suites to develop optimized overall configurations for fusion power plants and other testbed fusion devices, deploying scientific and technical understanding to pioneer these solutions.
• Working with expert groups from across the university to understand and integrate the constraints of many subsystems and aspects of plasma physics.
• Simulation-based investigations to look in depth at key aspects of the system individually (such as subsystems, underlying fundamental discovery plasma science questions, techniques and behavior in fusion plasmas, blanket behavior – dependent on skillset and background of the applicant) with a view to concept improvement and understanding.
• Writing simulation code to improve models of behavior in the simulation suite, or facilitate execution of workflows.
• Establish collaborative engagement with other efforts across the United States, and particularly with access to national laboratories and heroic computational facilities.
• Potentially to engage in, or collaborate with validation exercises such as experimental tests on tokamaks or other testbed devices.
• Generate scientific deliverables including journal papers and conference talks.
• Significant aspects of these goals are expected to be achieved through support to and oversight of other personnel, such as postdocs and students, and thus a key responsibility is to oversee such delegation, work specification, oversight, tracking and mentorship to deliver research goals, and empower colleagues to personal success. The successful candidate is expected to be able to operate with a high degree of autonomy and grapple with highly complex technical issues, distilling them down to essential understanding for a working knowledge. Specific understanding of relevant plasma science or fusion technology is essential. Excellent collaboration and people skills are required to work with and integrate a large team of experts. Some travel may be required to engage with collaborators. Qualified candidates will have a Ph.D. in Physics or a related field, and at least two years experience since PhD in plasma or fusion technology research involving a strong simulation dimension and a demonstrated background directly applicable to the tasks, including experience with fusion simulation activities on the science or engineering side. Candidates should provide a curriculum vitae; a publication list; a Statement of Research Interests and Future Research Goals, complete a reference check authorization release form, and arrange for 2-3 letters of reference to be uploaded to UCLA Academic Recruit. Please submit your application materials via UC Recruit by November 30.