Nuclear Engineer - Nuclear Incident Response Program, Onsite

What Your Job Will Be Like

We are seeking an early career engineer/scientist with a background in nuclear/radiological science or closely related scientific field to join our team. We maintain responsibility for several projects key to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) including the Consequence Management (CM) program and the Joint Technical Operations Team (JTOT). The selected applicant will provide technical support to several of the program areas including working with DOE CM program leadership and the Sandia's CM Program Leader. The position will help evolve how the nation responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies. In particular, we are seeking an individual with experience in radiological laboratory operations. The individual hired into this position will be part of an elite team of scientists and engineers from across the national laboratories that define the nation's tactics, techniques, procedures, and tools for sample handling, laboratory analysis, and data management during any type of radiological or nuclear incident. This individual would be part of an emergency response team that, when called into action, would work to ensure field samples are processed in the most efficient way, laboratories are providing data consistent with the analysis request, and that complex radiological sample data is interpreted and summarized in a way that meets the needs of the data users. This individual would also support the Fly Away Laboratory, a field-deployable radiological analysis laboratory capability that provides rapid, quantitative field analysis of samples for radiological contaminants.

On any given day, you may be called on to:

• Support research & development projects related to nuclear incident response and Consequence Management (CM)
• Use radiological laboratory experience to develop/improve standard processes and procedures related to sample control, sample management, data review, and analysis
• Verify, validate, and interpret radiological sample data to support emergency response decision making
• Participate in interagency working groups that develop national policy related to nuclear incident response
• Build and provide technical training across the CM community
• Interact with outside agencies across the CM community and provide well-organized and professional presentations and training on technical and programmatic issues
• Participate as a member of the national CM Response Team and other response teams as skills and interests allow
• Help develop/improve the CM Program and processes in support of DOE program offices
• Coordinate across multiple DOE labs to build cross-program capabilities
• Build and maintain readiness of the Fly Away Laboratory equipment, procedures, and mobile laboratory container shelter
• Develop and maintain new Fly Away Laboratory methods and capabilities
• Develop and maintain Fly Away Laboratory data systems

Due to the nature of the work, the selected applicant must be able to work onsite. The selected applicant must have the ability to support periodic travel (approximately 8-10 trips per year, usually 2-3 days each)

Salary Range

$102,400 - $199,700

*Salary range is estimated, and actual salary will be determined after consideration of the selected candidate's experience and qualifications, and application of any approved geographic salary differential.

Qualifications We Require

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline, or an equivalent combination of directly relevant education and engineering or scientific experience that demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform independent research and development.
• Ability to obtain a DOE Q clearance

Qualifications We Desire

The ideal R&D S&E Nuclear Engineering candidate for Sandia National Laboratories will in addition possess the following:

• Graduate degree in Nuclear Engineering or a highly related field where an independent research project was a graduation requirement (e.g., independent project, thesis, or dissertation).
• Operational experience with radiological and/or nuclear facilities.
• Experience performing radiation transport modeling.
• Knowledge of criticality safety and criticality analyses.
• Strong verbal and written communications skills, and the ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams.

Also, for this posting we are seeking individuals with the following experience:

• Understanding of radiation interactions with matter and other fundamental radiation detection principles
• General experience in using laboratory radiation detection equipment such as High-Purity Germanium spectrometers, alpha/beta counters, liquid scintillation counters, and their data acquisition and computer systems
• Ability to obtain and maintain DOE Radiological Worker I qualification
• Active DOE Q clearance
• Demonstrated success leading teams to solve complex and loosely defined problems
• Demonstrated experience in technical composition such as scientific studies, laboratory analytical procedures, or other technical methodology
• Minimum of 3 years of experience working in a radiological analytical laboratory
• Operational experience with radiological laboratory equipment, including gamma spectrometers, gas proportional counters, and liquid scintillation counters
• Experience in laboratory data quality assurance processes
• Expertise in laboratory Quality Assurance processes and conduct of operations
• Demonstrated experience with radioactive material measurements and data evaluation from field instrumentation and laboratory instrumentation
• Experience in laboratory method development and method verification and validation
• Experience with gamma and alpha spectroscopy data interpretation and analysis including radionuclide identification and quantification
• Experience with performing calibrations on gamma spectrometers (including mathematical efficiency modeling), liquid scintillation counters and gas proportional counters
• Experience with data analysis and visualization
• Knowledge of basic health physics principles
• Experience with computer programming, networking, advanced data analysis techniques

About Our Team

The Nuclear Incident Response Programs Department is responsible for the oversight and management of several Nuclear Emergency Response teams as well as Sandia-led portions of the National Consequence Management(CM) Program. Department personnel are responsible for and actively developing deployable technologies to mitigate an explosive release of hazardous materials and for predicting the consequences of such releases. Containment technologies use aqueous foams and rapidly deployable containment systems which can be used to mitigate explosively dispersed materials from the atmosphere. Department personnel are also responsible for writing and maintaining field deployable, state-of-the-art computational codes for predicting the dispersal, transport, deposition, and subsequent consequences of these types of hazardous material releases. Additionally department personnel fill leading national roles in Consequence Management and Radiological Dose Assessment including developing new dose assessment analysis techniques as well as software and other tools to assist responders to a radiological event.

Posting Duration

This posting will be open for application submissions for a minimum of three (3) calendar days, including the 'posting date'. Sandia reserves the right to extend the posting date at any time.