Automation Scientist, AI-Driven Electron Microscopy

California-Institute-of-Technology; Pasadena (CA); On-site; USD 80,000 - 113,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Retirement savings plans

Generous paid time off

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

Caltech is hiring an Automation Scientist to design automated electron microscopy and sample-prep workflows for ELECTRA, an AI-enabled, remotely accessible lab. You will develop machine-readable protocols, define acceptance criteria, and enable trusted remotely run experiments.

You will analyze datasets, mentor junior staff, and contribute to publications while collaborating across PCL nodes and onboarding users, both on-site and remotely.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in chemistry, materials science, structural biology, chemical engineering, physics, or a related field plus 1 year of related experience (or Master's with at least 3 years of related experience).
• Track record of publishing work.
• Hands-on experience with a structural characterization method.
• Experience automating laboratory workflows or running high-throughput experimentation.
• Proficiency in coding and data processing.
• Strong collaboration and written communication skills, and genuine interest in supporting users at institutions with fewer resources than ours.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and validate automated and semi-autonomous electron microscopy and sample-preparation workflows, including closed-loop, active-learning strategies that improve hit rates with less human intervention.
• Express experimental logic as reviewable protocols and machine-readable specifications, and establish the acceptance criteria, calibration routines, validation standards, and failure/recovery definitions that make a remotely executed experiment trustworthy.
• Analyze and interpret experimental datasets, and curate high-quality datasets, including metadata and failure cases, to inform workflow design and support AI-driven experiment design and cross-node standards.
• Collaborate with the team to translate experimental logic into instrument-control routines, scheduling constraints, and user-facing interfaces, and co-develop common experimental-design and laboratory protocols with counterparts at other PCL nodes.
• Provide expert technical support to onboarded users, on-site and remote, helping them translate scientific questions into executable ELECTRA experiments.
• Contribute to recruitment and onboarding workshops, user documentation, and facility tours; mentor students and junior staff; and contribute to publications and technical reports.

Skills

Coding & data processing

Collaboration & communication

Laboratory automation

High-throughput experimentation

Publishing track record

Education

Ph.D. in chemistry, materials science, structural biology, chemical engineering, physics, or related field

Master's with 3+ years of related experience

Tools

XDS

DIALS

CCP4

PHENIX

SHELX

Job description

Caltech is hiring an Automation Scientist to design automated electron microscopy and sample-prep workflows for ELECTRA, an AI-enabled, remotely accessible lab. You will develop machine-readable protocols, define acceptance criteria, and enable trusted remotely run experiments.

You will analyze datasets, mentor junior staff, and contribute to publications while collaborating across PCL nodes and onboarding users, both on-site and remotely.