R&D Associate, Power Electronics Packaging

Requisition Id 13393 

Purpose:

The Vehicle Power Electronics Research Group in Buildings and Transportation Science Division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) seeks a highly motivated researcher in Power Electronics Packaging. ORNL is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national laboratory, with an extraordinary 80-year history of solving the nation’s biggest problems. With a dedicated and creative staff of over 6,000 people, ORNL’s decadal vision for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) is to cultivate an environment and practices that foster diversity in ideas and in the people across the organization, as well as to ensure ORNL is recognized as a workplace of choice. These elements are critical for enabling the execution of ORNL’s broader mission to accelerate scientific discoveries and their translation into energy, environment, and security solutions for the nation. We seek a researcher to conduct research on wide bandgap power electronic modules and power sub-systems to meet performance, reliability, and cost challenges at the packing design and system levels, and someone who is capable of developing new packaging technologies to advance the state of the art in power electronics packaging for advanced applications.

Major Duties / Responsibilities:

• Determine research needs and power electronics packaging specifications to develop power electronics modules and subsystems to meet performance, reliability, and the electrical, mechanical, thermal, and magnetics requirements.

• Perform the design of power modules and packages.

• Research and develop new, advanced packaging technologies including sintering, welding, wire bonding, interconnect systems, materials, etc. to advance the state of the art in power electronics packaging.

• Use 3D multiphysics models for electrical, mechanical, thermal, and magnetics optimization of new generation power modules.

• Conduct R&D projects and help the expansion of R&D to take advantage of our multidisciplinary capabilities, multimodal strengths, and unique tools and capabilities.

• Perform design, development, analysis, optimization, modeling, simulation, and testing of power electronics systems, subsystems, and components.

• Validate theoretical designs through prototype building and testing evaluation.

• Network and develop collaborative R&D with other groups and divisions internally and within DOE, and the industry including semiconductor and power converter manufacturers.

• Prepare new proposals to the internal and external funding agencies.

• Have excellent oral and written skills for preparing and presenting research results to sponsors, peer reviewers, industry partners and others and at technical meetings such as IEEE and SAE sponsored conferences.

• Deliver ORNL's mission by aligning behaviors, priorities, and interactions with our core values of Impact, Integrity, Teamwork, Safety, and Service. Promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility by fostering a respectful workplace - in how we treat one another, work together, and measure success.

Basic Qualifications:

• A Ph.D. in Electrical or Mechanical engineering with focus on power electronics.

• Experience with various wide bandgap power semiconductor technologies, gate drive circuitries, magnetics, soft switching techniques, resonant circuits, and wide bandgap semiconductor based power electronic hardware development.

• Expertise in 3D modeling and mechanical and electrical design tools.

• Expertise in mechanical, thermal, and electrical simulation tools.

• Familiarity with high temperature packaging.

• Experience in power module and converter assembly.

• Prior experience in proposal development activities is preferred.

• Strong communication skills to make presentations to sponsors and others and to prepare reports, proposals, and publications/journal articles.

• Strong interpersonal skills to support team building and leadership.

• A publication history in prestigious international conferences and journals.

• Demonstrated publication record of scientific results in either peer-reviewed journals, or presentations at national meetings, are expected.

• A strong commitment to scientific integrity is an important requirement.

Special Requirements:

• Some travel will be required for this position.
• No clearance is required.

This position will remain open for a minimum of 5 days after which it will close when a qualified candidate is identified and/or hired.

We accept Word (.doc, .docx), Adobe (unsecured .pdf), Rich Text Format (.rtf), and HTML (.htm, .html) up to 5MB in size. Resumes from third party vendors will not be accepted; these resumes will be deleted and the candidates submitted will not be considered for employment.

If you have trouble applying for a position, please email ORNLRecruiting@ornl.gov.

ORNL is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants, including individuals with disabilities and protected veterans, are encouraged to apply.  UT-Battelle is an E-Verify employer.