Group Leader - Workflow and Ecosystems Services

Requisition Id 17087 

Overview:

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is seeking a Group Leader for the Workflow and Ecosystem Services (WES) Research and Development group in the National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS). The group creates and deploys workflow, data, and AI-agent technologies that connect leadership-class computing with experimental and observational science. Its primary goal is to improve the efficiency, dependability, and trustworthiness of scientific workflows, from traditional HPC and data pipelines to agentic workflows in which AI agents plan, execute, monitor, and adapt computational and experimental campaigns, running in distributed large-scale advanced computing environments. The group also delivers AI-ready and FAIR scientific data, together with the orchestration, provenance, and benchmarking methods that make agentic and traditional workflows reliable at scale. The group’s main objective is to empower scientists and researchers by enabling them to effectively apply leadership-class and distributed computing resources offered by flagship DOE computational and observational user facilities. 

The WES group is in NCCS’s Advanced Technologies Section which offers scientific, technical, operational, and thought leadership by developing, hardening, and deploying solutions for compute and data intensive computing environments. The section's staff develops and deploys emerging large-scale data science, AI, and agentic methods for scientific user programs and enables innovation through operational data analytics. Staff members facilitate data stewardship and enriched scalable data access capabilities and develop end-to-end scientific workflow technologies for user programs. They identify technical gaps in the computing and data sciences ecosystems, so they can implement solutions to enable scientific discovery. NCCS has a long-standing history in High-Performance Computing (HPC) operating leadership-class systems in its Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), deploying the world’s first exascale supercomputer system (Frontier), and deploying some of the largest parallel file systems in the world. 

As a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national laboratory, ORNL has an outstanding 80-year history of solving the nation’s biggest problems. These elements are essential 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. 

Major Duties/Responsibilities: 

• Develop a vision and implement a cohesive group strategy for offering innovative workflow, data, and agentic AI ecosystem capabilities to position the group and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) for future success in its mission. 
• Lead the group's research agenda in agentic workflows, including architectures and orchestration for AI agents operating across HPC, data, and experimental facilities, and the provenance, evaluation, and trustworthiness methods needed to run them at leadership scale. 
• Develop new research directions relevant to the OLCF mission and the overall health of the division. 
• Collaborate with scientists within and outside of the laboratory to advance the scientific mission of our group, laboratory, the Department of Energy and other sponsors. 
• Provide relevant input to assist the Section Head with staff development while providing direct and impactful mentorship to staff on a regular basis. 
• Serve as immediate supervisor for staff members in the group, including performance management, career development, and workload planning. 
• Write peer-reviewed papers, technical reports, and proposals for internal and external release and represent the organization by giving technical presentations in large public forums. 
• Mentor emerging research staff, postdocs, and students. 
• Build strong collaborations across ORNL. 
• Attract a quality, diverse pool of top candidates and hire staff members who are committed to world-class R&D. 
• Hold regular scientific/technical group meetings and be present in the labs and workplace. 

Basic Qualifications: 

• Requires a Ph.D. in computer science or a related subject area, and at least ten years of relevant research experience, beyond the PhD. 
• A track record of data and workflow tools and technologies development and machine orchestration methods (agentic and/or automated workflows), and HPC. 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Validated experience in leading R&D teams. 
• Experience leading large-scale R&D projects, ideally spanning multiple institutions or DOE facilities. 
• A well-established track record in leading community efforts and events leading to significant community resources. 
• A strong awareness of DOE and non-DOE agencies research initiatives. 
• Experience organizing workshops and conferences in an area relevant to one or more areas of expertise of the group. 
• Strong knowledge of performance modeling, simulation, and benchmarking of parallel and distributed computing systems and of the workflow systems that run on them. 
• Familiarity with the FAIR data and research software principles, and with producing AI-ready scientific data. 
• Demonstrated experience designing, building, or deploying agentic workflows and multi-agent systems for science, including their orchestration, provenance, and evaluation. 
• Experience integrating AI/ML models and services with HPC and workflow systems, such as inference serving on leadership systems, coupling of AI agents with simulation and data pipelines, or human-in-the-loop control of automated campaigns. 
• Demonstrated ability to rapidly adopt emerging technologies, including LLM-based and agentic tooling. 
• Outstanding communication skills. 
• Excellent interpersonal skills and strong personal motivation. 

Special Requirements:

• Security, Credential, and Eligibility Requirements: For employment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), a Real ID compliant form of identification will be required. Additionally, ORNL 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 mandated by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) and Department of Energy (DOE) Order 473.1A, which requires a favorable post-employment background investigation.

To obtain this credential, new employees must successfully complete and pass a Federal Tier 1 background check investigation. This investigation includes a declaration of illegal drug activities, including use, supply, possession, or manufacture within the last year. This includes marijuana and cannabis derivatives, which are still considered illegal under federal law, regardless of state laws.

For foreign national candidates:

If you have not resided in the U.S. for three consecutive years, you are not eligible for the PIV credential and instead will need to obtain a favorable Local Site Specific Only (LSSO) risk determination to maintain employment. Once you meet the three-year residency requirement, you will be required to obtain a PIV credential to maintain employment. 

About ORNL:

As a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national laboratory, ORNL has an impressive 80-year legacy of addressing the nation’s most pressing challenges. Our team is made up of over 7,000 dedicated and innovative individuals! Our goal is to create an environment where a variety of perspectives and backgrounds are valued, ensuring ORNL is known as a top choice for employment. These principles are essential for supporting our broader mission to drive scientific breakthroughs and translate them into solutions for energy, environmental, and security challenges facing the nation.

ORNL offers competitive pay and benefits programs to attract and retain individuals who demonstrate exceptional work behaviors. The laboratory provides a range of employee benefits, including medical and retirement plans and flexible work hours, to support the well-being of you and your family. Employee amenities such as on-site fitness, banking, and cafeteria facilities are also available for added convenience.

Other benefits include the following: Prescription Drug Plan, Dental Plan, Vision Plan, 401(k) Retirement Plan, Contributory Pension Plan, Life Insurance, Disability Benefits, Generous Vacation and Holidays, Parental Leave, Legal Insurance with Identity Theft Protection, Employee Assistance Plan, Flexible Spending Accounts, Health Savings Accounts, Wellness Programs, Educational Assistance, Relocation Assistance, and Employee Discounts.

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.