Founded in 1856, University of Maryland, College Park is the state’s flagship institution. Our 1,250-acre College Park campus is just minutes away from Washington, D.C., and the nexus of the nation’s legislative, executive, and judicial centers of power. This unique proximity to business and technology leaders, federal departments and agencies, and a myriad of research entities, embassies, think tanks, cultural centers, and non-profit organizations is simply unparalleled. Synergistic opportunities for our faculty and students abound and are virtually limitless in the nation’s capital and surrounding areas. The University is committed to attracting and retaining outstanding and diverse faculty and staff that will enhance our stature of preeminence in our three missions of teaching, scholarship, and full engagement in our community, the state of Maryland, and in the world.

The University of Maryland has made the safety of our students, faculty and staff, and our surrounding communities a top priority. As part of that commitment, the University System of Maryland (USM) recently announced that students, faculty, and staff on USM campuses this fall, including UMD, are required to be vaccinated against COVID. As a prospective and/or a new employee at UMD, you will be required to comply with the University’s vaccination protocol. Proof of full vaccination will be required before the start of employment in order to work at any University of Maryland location. Prospective or new employees may seek a medical or religious exemption to the vaccination requirement at return.umd.edu and must have an approved exemption prior to the start of their employment. Failure to provide proof of vaccination or to obtain approval for a medical or religious exemption will result in the offer of employment being rescinded.

The successful candidates will take exciting and leading technical roles in a new ARPA-E OPEN project that is expected to begin in summer, 2022. The project title is “Fast-Charging, Solid-State, Roll-to-Roll Processed Li Metal Batteries Enabled by Intercalated Ions in Cellulose Molecular Channels.” ARPA-E’s announcement of this new award is listed here: https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/OPEN%202021_Project%20Descriptions_Final.pdf

This project is based in part on a recent publication in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03885-6

The focus of this position will be electrochemical modeling of a high-energy cell with this cellulose-based conductor as the solid electrolyte. A particular emphasis will be on high-rate charging of this cell, at several temperatures. The successful applicant will develop detailed physics- and chemistry-based transient mathematical models for cell charge and discharge, based on the coupled thermodynamic, kinetic, and transport processes taking place in the cell.

In addition, the successful applicant may contribute to the design of experiments for parameterization of material-level (e.g., transport properties of the cellulose-based conductor) and cell-level (e.g., separating electrode- and particle-scale) processes. Methods such as EIS, GITT, pulsing, and others may be used.

The position will be in the Albertus research group in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Maryland. Professor Albertus has extensive experience developing electrochemical models and simulating battery performance.
Relevant publications are available at his Google Scholar page.

Applicants do not need to be US citizens. The start date is flexible, with a goal of summer,
2022.

The University of Maryland, College Park, an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment. The University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status, age, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, creed, marital status, political affiliation, personal appearance, or on the basis of rights secured by the First Amendment, in all aspects of employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions.