Principal Research Scientist - RiskWe are seeking an experienced research scientist to lead Neara's internal research group in topics of system resilience, reliability, and policy. In this role, you will define a research agenda, develop rigorous statistical and decision models, and translate findings into tools and recommendations for utilities managing billions of dollars in capital expenditure.
Neara provides network-scale structural, loading, and contextual data across complete overhead electrical systems. As the Principal Research Scientist - Risk, you will use this information to build generalizable models of asset failure and determine the value of additional data, inspections, and interventions.
What You Will Do:- Build and lead Neara's applied research function for infrastructure risk and resilience.
- Direct a team of researchers and establish rigorous standards for risk modeling, uncertainty quantification, and decision-making.
- Develop predictive models for equipment damage, vegetation failure, outage likelihood and duration, and wildfire-related risk.
- Design decision models that quantify the operational and economic consequences of resilience and reliability investments, including asset replacement, vegetation management, and network redesign.
- Quantify the value of data including pole loading analysis, visual inspections, and the installation of new devices and remote sensing capabilities, both empirically and by analytical methods.
Who You Are:- A PhD in statistics, applied mathematics, physics, computer science, operations research, engineering, or a comparable record of original research and applied technical work.
- Evidence of having independently defined and led a substantial research program as a group leader or industry principal, demonstrated through influential publications, patents, or production systems.
- Experienced in building technical teams and setting research direction.
- Extensive experience in probabilistic modeling, uncertainty quantification, model validation, scientific computing capabilities and decision-making under incomplete information.
- Substantial experience modeling operational systems. Particularly relevant topics include insurance or catastrophe modeling; weather prediction and climate hazard; outages in power systems; and reliability engineering.
What We Offer:- A highly competitive compensation package including a significant equity component to ensure you directly benefit from Neara's sustained success and impact on critical infrastructure.
- The opportunity to work on a cutting-edge, 3D physics-enabled platform used to anticipate the impact of extreme events, reduce infrastructure failure, and direct investment. Access to unique network-scale utility data unavailable in other industrial research settings.
- Freedom to define and build Neara's research modeling function, establishing the agenda, identifying preferred methods and working on novel under-specified problems.
- A central role in shaping Neara's long-term product roadmap, analytical standards and customer advisory services.
- Flexible hours and working arrangements designed to help you do your best work from where you work best.
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