Posting Title

Researcher III – Infrastructure Resilience and Energy Security

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Location

Remote

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Position Type

Regular

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Hours Per Week

40

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Working at NLR

Join the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), where world-class scientists, engineers, and experts are accelerating energy innovation through breakthrough research and systems integration. From our mission to our collaborative culture, NLR stands out in the research community for its commitment to an affordable and secure energy future. Spanning foundational science to applied systems engineering and analysis, we focus on solving complex challenges to deliver advanced, secure, reliable, and cost-effective energy solutions. Our work helps strengthen U.S. industries, support job creation, and promote national economic growth.

At NLR, you'll find a mission-driven environment supported by state-of-the-art facilities, multidisciplinary research teams, and strong collaborations with industry, academia, and other national laboratories. We offer robust professional development opportunities, and a competitive benefits package designed to support your career and well-being.

Job Description

The Resilient Infrastructure and Security Center (RISC) advances energy security, infrastructure, and resilience technologies that can withstand and recover from disruptions—empowering secure, competitive economies and resilient, thriving communities. Within the RISC center, the Strategic Energy Security (SES) Group leads projects and initiatives to ensure our nation’s energy security, assists in disaster planning and recovery, enables resilient infrastructure assessment, and implementation, and works with national security partners to ensure that critical infrastructure remains resilient and operational during disruptive events.

SES is hiring a researcher to support and lead various analysis efforts that are central to the Threat to Consequences demonstrations, a critically important capability and growing area of work for the lab. This role requires someone with a keen attention to detail, versatility, excellent analytical capabilities, and a willingness to work with a variety of teams to accomplish tasks in a timely manner. In this role, the successful candidate will both work to deepen and enhance consequence analysis capabilities and develop customized demonstrations for important visitors, VIPs, and other stakeholders that showcase these capabilities and how they might be leveraged to better understand and manage the consequences posed by various threats and hazards that threaten these complex, interconnected systems. This role requires the ability to work in collaboration with many matrixed contributors, be a contributing team member, but also lead the development of the demonstration projects independently at times. This work often operates in difficult circumstances with tight timelines, high stakes, and continuously changing requests; therefore, the successful candidate needs to be comfortable with uncertainty and innovating novel ways to tackle new challenges as they arise.

Job Responsibilities:

• Conduct data assessments and analyses
• Write SQL queries to extract, clean, and analyze large datasets, combining disparate sources to generate synthetic datasets as needed
• Identify potential threats, vulnerabilities, interruptions, and areas of weakness in grid-related energy distribution use cases
• Develop clear documentation that others can understand, replicate, and build upon
• Develop and maintain backend logic and pipelines using Python (or other software languages), providing clear documentation that others can understand, replicate, and build upon
• Effectively use geospatial tools and platforms, including ArcGIS, QGIS, and Google Earth, to identify, analyze, and visually display geospatial information and phenomena
• Clearly define and identify project requirements, adjusting these requirements and outputs as project objectives and circumstances may change 
• Track deliverables and milestones as projects progress, clearly communicating how the work product meets project requirements 
• Collaborate with team members, including members from different parts of the lab with different areas of expertise 

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Basic Qualifications

Relevant PhD . Or, relevant Master's Degree and 3 or more years of experience . Or, relevant Bachelor's Degree and 5 or more years of experience . Demonstrates broad understanding and wide application of engineering technical procedures, principles, theories and concepts in the field. General knowledge of other related disciplines. Demonstrates leadership in one or more areas of team, task or project lead responsibilities. Demonstrated experience in management of projects. Very good writing, interpersonal and communication skills.

* Must meet educational requirements prior to employment start date.

Additional Required Qualifications

• Must be able to obtain and maintain a DOE security clearance at the DOE (Q) and SCI access or DoD (TS).  Eligibility requirements: To obtain a clearance, an individual must be at least 18 years of age; U.S. Citizenship is required except in very limited circumstances. See DOE O 472.2A  for additional information.

• Training and experience in geographic information sciences and data analysis, including proficiency in SQL, Python, and JavaScript

• Experience with assessing risks and vulnerabilities within different infrastructure, potential consequences associated with infrastructure disruptions, and resilience and/or disaster planning
• Broad and in-depth knowledge of the issues and best practices in the applicable field of expertise
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Proven problem-solving and negotiation skills
• Ability to collaborate with individuals at all levels of the organization
• Demonstrated ability to effectively work independently and achieve milestones in a timely manner

Preferred Qualifications

• Some exposure and interest in growing into a role where you are leading projects and teams
• Experience with geospatial analysis and remote sensing
• Experience with assessing risk and/or disaster planning and recovery
• Direct experience with military operations, installations, and infrastructure
• Understanding of military and national security concerns
• Some exposure with budgetary experience including planning and overseeing project budgets
• Strong communications experience representing organization to internal and external audiences, including at an executive level

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Job Application Submission Window

The anticipated closing window for application submission is up to 30 days and may be extended as needed.

Annual Salary Range (based on full-time 40 hours per week)

Job Profile: Researcher III / Annual Salary Range: $83,600 - $150,500

NLR takes into consideration a candidate’s education, training, and experience, expected quality and quantity of work, required travel (if any), external market and internal value, including seniority and merit systems, and internal pay alignment when determining the salary level for potential new employees. In compliance with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, a potential new employee’s salary history will not be used in compensation decisions.

Benefits Summary

Benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance; short*- and long-term disability insurance; pension benefits*; 403(b) Employee Savings Plan with employer match*; life and accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance; personal time off (PTO) and sick leave; paid holidays; and tuition reimbursement*. NLR employees may be eligible for, but are not guaranteed, performance-, merit-, and achievement- based awards that include a monetary component. Some positions may be eligible for relocation expense reimbursement. Limited-term positions are not eligible for long-term disability or tuition reimbursement.

* Based on eligibility rules

Badging Requirement

NLR is subject to Department of Energy (DOE) access restrictions. All employees must also be able to obtain and maintain a federal Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card as required by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12), which includes a favorable background investigation.

Drug Free Workplace

NLR is committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace in accordance with the federal Drug-Free Workplace Act and complies with federal laws prohibiting the possession and use of illegal drugs. Under federal law, marijuana remains an illegal drug.

If you are offered employment at NLR, you must pass a pre-employment drug test prior to commencing employment. Unless prohibited by state or local law, the pre-employment drug test will include marijuana. If you test positive on the pre-employment drug test, your offer of employment may be withdrawn.

Submission Guidelines

Please note that in order to be considered an applicant for any position at NLR you must submit an application form for each position for which you believe you are qualified. Applications are not kept on file for future positions. Please include a cover letter and resume with each position application.

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Equal Opportunity Employer

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard basis of age (40 and over), color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, domestic partner status, military or veteran status, national origin/ancestry, race, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding), sexual orientation, and any other applicable status protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Reasonable Accommodations

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