Postdoc: Multiscale WUI Fire Emissions & Modeling

Iafss; Worcester (MA); Hybrid; USD 60,000 - 86,000; Full time

Job summary

Worcester Polytechnic Institute is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to contribute to an interdisciplinary project on wildland-urban interface fire emissions from building materials and scaled residential structures.

The role focuses on experiments, data analysis, and modeling to understand how fire behavior influences emissions and how to predict emissions from materials and assemblies across scales.

Qualifications

• PhD in mechanical engineering, architectural/building engineering, fire protection engineering, civil/environmental engineering, chemical engineering, atmospheric science, or closely related field.
• Strong foundation in heat and mass transfer, fluid mechanics, combustion, or environmental transport; plus quantitative data-analysis skills.
• Experience with experimental research or datasets; modeling plus hands-on experimental experience is a plus.
• Peer-reviewed publication record and ability to carry research from analysis to manuscript preparation.

Responsibilities

• Plan, execute, and analyze medium- and large-scale WUI fire experiments using building materials and scaled models.
• Analyze integrated fire-behavior and emission datasets (temperature, heat flux, flow, combustion indicators, aerosol/gas measurements).
• Evaluate fire-emission relationships, emission additivity, and scale dependence across scales with attention to uncertainty and reproducibility.
• Develop or apply computational models to interpret experiments and explore cross-scale information transfer (CFD, reduced-order or physics-informed models, urban dispersion).
• Prepare manuscripts and presentations; collaborate with students and project partners; contribute to proposal development.

Skills

Fire-smoke research

Data analysis

Scientific programming

Publication track record

Education

PhD in engineering or atmospheric sciences

Tools

FDS/WFDS

QUIC-Fire/QUIC-SMOKE

FIRETEC

High-performance computing

Job description

Worcester Polytechnic Institute is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to contribute to an interdisciplinary project on wildland-urban interface fire emissions from building materials and scaled residential structures.

The role focuses on experiments, data analysis, and modeling to understand how fire behavior influences emissions and how to predict emissions from materials and assemblies across scales.