The Smart Materials Research Institute  of Southern Federal University, Russia seeks postdoctoral researchers for scientific researches and collaborative projects in the area of Materials science.

PROJECT 1 - The frontier Laboratory of X-ray Spectral Nanometrology

Research supervisor: Professor Alexander V. Soldatov

Features of the research activity: We are seeking for a motivated postdoctoral fellow (postdoc) with a PhD in Math\Computer Science\Physics\Computational Chemistry and with practical skills in modern approaches for data science and machine learning. The main goal of the research work will be concentrated in developing tools for spectral data analysis (PyFitIt project) and understanding synthesis-structure-properties relationships in reactions with metal-organic complexes and metal-organic frameworks.

Responsibilities: Data-oriented material science (materials descriptors, clusterization and dimensionality reduction, supervised machine learning to uncover relationship between structure and property), processing of high throughput computational results and spectroscopic data. 

Job Requirements

• Age below 35 years
• PhD diploma in materials science, applied mathematics, chemistry, physics
• Fluent English (upper intermediate B2)
• At least 3 high-level research publications in the peer-reviewed journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science
• Strong background in methodology of data science and supervised/unsupervised machine learning, with a special attention to scientific ML application for cheminformatics, materials informatics
• General programming skills, related to the ML (preferred Python with common tools and frameworks: Pandas, numpy, sklearn, scipy, statmodels, pytorch\jax\tensorflow)
• Experience in scientific paper writing and literature review

PROJECT 2 - Laboratory of microfluidic technologies for accelerated synthesis of materials

Research supervisor: Dr. Alexander A. Guda

Features of the research activity: We are seeking for a motivated postdoctoral fellow (postdoc) with a PhD in Physics\Computational Chemistry\Materials Science with knowledge in modern computational methods for structural and spectroscopic properties of materials. The main goal of the research work will be concentrated in multiscale supercomputer simulations for reaction energy profiles and molecular dynamic simulations of metal complexes and metal-organic frameworks.

Responsibilities: investigation of reaction intermediates, energy barriers, thermodynamic stabilities within catalytic cycle; molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations for growth and decomposition of metalorganic complexes and metal-organic frameworks in solution at different levels of theory (density functional theory and semi-empirical methods).

Job Requirements

• Age below 35 years
• PhD diploma in materials science, applied mathematics, chemistry, physics
• Fluent English (upper intermediate B2)
• At least 3 high-level research publications in the peer-reviewed journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science
• Strong background in computational material science or theoretical chemistry with a simulation expertise either in ab initio framework (density functional theory) or empirical and semiempirical approaches for: geometry optimization and thermochemistry calculations, molecular dynamics, also with (machine-learned) interatomic potentials, semiempirical DFT
• Experience with computational software for materials simulation (DFT\WFT: VASP, ADF, ORCA are preferred; molecular dynamics and (semi-)empirical methods: LAMMPS, GROMACS, DFTB+, xTB etc) and results postprocessing and visualization (VESTA, ORIGIN, AVOGARDO, CHEMCRAFT etc)

What we offer

• Employment at SFedU under an employment contract for 1 to 3 years with a salary from 90,000 RUB per month
• The access to the infrastructure of the Kurchatov synchrotron radiation source and supercomputer center of Southern Federal University
• An apartment in the university residence

About Smart Materials Institute: The Smart Materials Research Institute specializes in the field of application of large-scale facilities (synchrotron radiation sources) and supercomputers to address nanoscale structure of materials under in situ and operando conditions. Institute employers and PhD students occupy leading positions in the world in the application of X-ray absorption spectroscopy and machine learning methods for quantitative diagnostics of materials. The synergistic combination of the advantages of the classical Russian scientific school with a high level of mobility and the active use of mega-class research infrastructure defines the basis for the high efficiency of Smart Materials Institute in a variety of areas of scientific research, innovation and educational activities.

How to Apply

• The application is to be sent to guda@sfedu.ru (copy to nano@sfedu.ru). Use topic “Application for postdoc position SFedU, Name".
• The applicants should submit a motivation letter, a curriculum vitae, list of publications and related projects in the research field. Recommendation letter from the previous Employer is welcome.

The deadline for submitting applications is May 22, 2024