About the role#
The Accelerated Materials Design and Discovery (AMDD) team is seeking an intern to develop advanced analysis tools and pipelines for X-Ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of mixed-metal oxide thin-films. This project focuses on utilizing and developing automated Rietveld refinement tools to label XRD patterns and analyze structure-property-processing relationships within a diverse dataset. The work involves phase identification ranging from unary to ternary metal-oxides and investigating crystallite size, texturing, and strain to help overcome bottlenecks in high-throughput materials discovery.
What you'll do#
- Scope the project to align with core research efforts.
- Serve as the primary driver of the technical plan, including model development and analysis, with regular feedback from mentors.
- Execute the project using internal resources.
- Present the project’s approach and findings in research meetings.
What you'll need#
- Current pursuit of a PhD in Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, or related fields.
- Familiarity with running tabletop or synchrotron XRD experiments.
- At least 2 years of experience performing Rietveld refinement.
- Experience with basic data analysis in Python.
- A documented track record of executing research projects, evidenced by journal publications.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to foster collaboration across interdisciplinary teams.
- A desire to work on challenging, open-ended research projects.
- Bonus qualifications include experience with XRD phase identification software (e.g., DARA, GSAS-II, MAUD, Spotlight), thin-film metal oxides, large datasets, and collaborative software development using git.
Location & details#
- Location: Los Altos, California.
- Term: Fall 2026.
- Commitment: Full-time, 12-week internship.
- Modality: Hybrid, in-office.
- Status: Paid position.
