Research Scientist

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Saturday, August 31, 2024

The research ranks are faculty positions for those who are advancing science within a laboratory or research group at Yale School of Medicine.

The research ranks are faculty positions for those who are advancing science within a laboratory or research group at Yale School of Medicine.
Overview

Research rank faculty hold a PhD, MD, or equivalent degree. There are three categories of research ranks: Associate Research Scientist (ARS), Research Scientist (RS), and Senior Research Scientist (SRS), as detailed in the Yale Faculty Handbook.

Teaching is not required for these ranks. Persons who are asked to undertake teaching should also be given a teaching appointment as a lecturer. In such circumstances, an appropriate portion of the salary may be paid from a teaching budget; however, for research appointees who are already employed full-time, the total compensation cannot be increased by payment for teaching.

Research rank faculty conduct or oversee research as a skilled or advanced member of a research group, center, or core. Typically support for the position is derived from PI sponsor or research program and there is no expectation, if not otherwise specified by the sponsoring PI, for the research rank faculty to obtain independent funding on which they serve as sole PI.

The career pathway descriptions below for research rank faculty (Associate Research Scientist [ARS], Research Scientist [RS], and Senior Research Scientist [SRS]) are meant to provide guidance on the hiring and career development of research rank faculty. In practice, however, many research rank faculty engage in activities that are a blend of different activities or that shift over time based on funding and other laboratory or institutional priorities. Advancement in the research ranks may reflect essential contributions and outstanding achievements in a very specific area or across different domains of research.
Areas of Concentration
1. Area of Concentration : Research Projects

Associate Research Scientists (ARS), Research Scientists (RS), and Senior Research Scientists (SRS) whose area of concentration is on Research Projects are pursuing longer-term research careers within existing research programs at Yale (not as independent investigators) as well as some who wish to obtain experiences and skillsets for careers in other research-related industries. They typically work on one or more research projects in the laboratory of one or more PIs.

Roles and responsibilities vary but typically involve some combination of project direction, research execution, research staff/trainee training and supervision, leading or assisting in the development of papers for publication and conference presentations, and supporting the preparation of grant applications and reports to funding agencies.
2. Area of Concentration : Research Methods

Associate Research Scientists (ARS), Research Scientists (RS), and Senior Research Scientists (SRS) whose area of concentration is in Research Methods play a pivotal role in the laboratory of one (or more) PI or a research core/center. They are often highly skilled experts in the development or utilization of research materials (e.g., specimen, agents, assays, assessments, diagnostics), techniques or technologies. They may serve important roles as biostatisticians, research design consultants, and managers of major laboratory equipment or trainers for use of services.

Their essential, high-level technical or methodological experience promotes the success of multiple investigators within or across sections/divisions/departments and often in support of core facilities and major centers. The contributions of their specialized or consultative expertise within the research team ensures laboratory productivity, delivery of core services, and competitive grant applications.
3. Area of Concentration : Research Administration

Associate Research Scientists (ARS), Research Scientists (RS), and Senior Research Scientists (SRS) whose area of concentration is in Research Administration serve a critical administrative and oversight role that requires significant scientific knowledge and expertise. These individuals may be providing expertise in the implementation and management of large grants or numerous research projects within or across sections, departments, centers or institutions. They may serve as the operational director of a research core or administrative director of large center grants or multisite studies.

These are experienced and skilled leaders of scientific personnel and managers of research environments and resources. They oversee critical research infrastructure and provide essential support to faculty scientists and their trainees, students, and staff. The pursuit of one’s own area of research interests is not expected in this pathway. It is anticipated that this pathway would be appropriate for a very limited number of faculty within a department, and that the position would be funded by multiple PIs and/or departmental or school-wide programs.
Research Rank Review and Reappointment Process

There is no limit on the number of reappointments at Associate Research Scientist (ARS), Research Scientist (RS), and Senior Research Scientist (SRS) ranks assuming there is PI or other departmental, core/center, or school support for the position. Contributions to the laboratory, center, or field should be evaluated during annual professional development reviews by the PI or center leader.

ARS and RS faculty should be reviewed to determine readiness for promotion at a minimum of 5-year intervals. ARS faculty who have been in rank for 1 year are eligible for renewal of their appointment for terms of up to 3 years contingent on satisfactory performance and available funding for the duration of the proposed term.
Research Rank Promotion Readiness

It is unusual for promotion to occur from Associate Research Scientist (ARS) to Research Scientist (RS) before 3 years or from Research Scientist (RS) to Senior Research Scientist (SRS) before 5 years in the lower rank. Exceptions can occur when there is evidence of extraordinary productivity, achievements, or recognition beyond an individual PI’s laboratory or Yale. Years spent as a staff scientist, research faculty or research administrator at another institution or in industry can factor into the timing of promotion.

At the time of promotion, all activities conducted by the research faculty are considered. Indicators for promotion may vary somewhat as a function of which area of concentration (Research Projects, Methods, or Administration) that best describes their main research focus, but typically include evidence of outstanding contributions to the success of research projects in two or more of the following areas in the prior 5 years:First author publications and scientific presentations
Co-Investigator on larger grants or PI/Co-PI on smaller grants (extramural or intramural)
Recognition by field for specialized technical, methodological, or scientific expertise, creativity, and/or innovation
Recognition by PIs and colleagues for essential contributions to the success of projects, cores, or centers at Yale
Evidence of outstanding operational leadership or support of numerous projects and investigators within and/or beyond Yale
Significant contributions to the writing of research SOPs, sections of successful grant applications and renewals, and other important reports to funders/sponsors
Research Faculty Transition to Ladder Faculty

There may be instances in which sufficient individual funding and other scientific/scholarly accomplishments merit consideration of the research faculty for a ladder track position. Transitioning of associate research scientists, research scientists or senior research scientists to the ladder ranks requires a national search. Only those who achieve Senior Research Scientist (SRS) status may be considered for targeted appointments to the ladder faculty, most often at the associate professor rank.

Associate Research Scientist

Description:

This appointment is given to individuals who are engaged in scholarly research in association with a faculty member or as a member of a research group. Such individuals will normally have at least two years of research experience following a PhD (or equivalent), will have demonstrated professional ability in fields related to the work or program of the department or area concerned, and will be expected to contribute to it as a colleague.

Process:

Terms for this rank are for one year and renewable without limit.

Appointment to the associate research scientist rank does NOT require an RFP, search, letters of reference, formal review by department faculty, presentation to a YSM A&P committee, the BPO, or the Yale Corporation. Fringe benefits may vary according to the source of salary. Research appointees who are paid from grants should be informed by the principal investigator of any change in the status of the grant as soon as possible after the information becomes available.

Appointment to this rank requires:Non-Yale CV Cover Template with Curriculum Vitae
Signed offer letter
Workday entry

Reappointment information is summarized on a different webpage, and reappointment to this rank requires:
Workday update

Research Scientist

Description:

This appointment is given to persons who are engaged in scholarly or scientific research as advanced scholars or as senior members of a research group.

Process:

Terms for this rank can be for up to three years and renewable without limit.

Appointment to the research scientist rank does NOT require an RFP, search, presentation to a YSM A&P committee, the BPO, or the Yale Corporation. Fringe benefits may vary according to the source of salary. Research appointees who are paid from grants should be informed by the principle investigator of any change in the status of the grant as soon as possible after the information becomes available.

Appointment to this rank requires:Departmental A&P narrative
Yale CV1
Yale CV2A (part A only) highly recommended
Reprints

Letters of evaluation with referee list template and Chair's letter of solicitation
Department Vote
Review/approvalOAPD (department chair presentation not needed)
Signed offer letter
Workday entry

Promotion to this rank requires:Departmental A&P narrative
Yale CV1
Yale CV2
Letters of evaluation with referee list template and Chair's letter of solicitation

Reprints

Department Vote
Review/approvalOAPD (department chair presentation not needed)
Signed offer letter
Workday entry

Reappointment information is summarized on a different webpage, and reappointment to this rank requires:
Workday update

Senior Research Scientist

Description:

This appointment is appropriate for individuals of high professional attainment, outstanding ability, and critical importance to a major research program.

Process:

Term for this rank can be for up to five years and is renewable without limit.

Appointment to the senior research scientist rank does NOT require an RFP or search. Fringe benefits may vary according to the source of the salary. Research appointees who are paid from grants should be informed by the principal investigator of any change in the status of the grant as soon as possible after the information becomes available.

Appointment to this rank requires:Departmental A&P narrative
Yale CV1
Yale CV2A (part A only) highly recommended
Letters of evaluation with referral list template and Chair's letter of solicitation

Reprints

Department vote
Review/approvalOAPD (department chair presentation not needed)
BPO (department chair presentation not needed)
Yale Corporation
Signed offer letter

Workday entry

Promotion to this rank requires:Departmental A&P narrative
Yale CV1
Yale CV2
Letters of evaluation with referee list template and Chair's letter of solicitation

Reprints

Department vote
Review/approvalOAPD (department chair presentation not needed)
BPO (department chair presentation not needed)
Yale Corporation
Workday entry

Reappointment information is summarized on a different webpage, and reappointment to this rank requires:
Workday update

Website: INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH SCIENTIST AWARD

#International Research Awards #Global Science Awards #Scientific Excellence Awards #Research Innovation Awards #Global Research Grants #Top Scientist Awards #International Science Honors #Global Research Recognition #Distinguished Research Scientist Awards #International Academic Awards

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Friday, August 30, 2024

Researchers discover a surprising way to jump-start battery performance

Menlo Park, Calif. — A lithium-ion battery’s very first charge is more momentous than it sounds. It determines how well and how long the battery will work from then on – in particular, how many cycles of charging and discharging it can handle before deteriorating.

In a study published today in Joule, researchers at the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center report that giving research this first charge at unusually high currents increased their average lifespan by 50% while decreasing the initial charging time from 10 hours to just 20 minutes.

Just as important, the researchers were able to use scientific machine learning to pinpoint specific changes in the battery electrodes that account for this increase in lifespan and performance – invaluable insights for battery manufacturers looking to streamline their processes and improve their products.

The study was carried out by a SLAC/Stanford team led by Professor Will Chueh in collaboration with researchers from the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Washington. It is part of SLAC's sustainability research and a broader effort to reimagine our energy future leveraging the lab’s unique tools and expertise and partnerships with industry.

“This is an excellent example of how SLAC is doing manufacturing science to make critical technologies for the energy transition more affordable,” Chueh said. “We’re solving a real challenge that industry is facing; critically, we partner with industry from the get-go.”

This was the latest in a series of studies funded by TRI under a cooperative research agreement with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

The results have practical implications for manufacturing not just lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and the electric grid, but for other technologies, too, said Steven Torrisi, a senior research scientist at TRI who collaborated on the research.

“This study is very exciting for us,” he said. “Battery manufacturing is extremely capital, energy and time intensive. It takes a long time to spin up manufacturing of a new battery, and it’s really difficult to optimize the manufacturing process because there are so many factors involved.”

Torrisi said the results of this research “demonstrate a generalizable approach for understanding and optimizing this crucial step in battery manufacturing. Further, we may be able to transfer what we have learned to new processes, facilities, equipment and battery chemistries in the future.”

A “squishy layer” that’s key to battery performance

To understand what happens during the battery’s initial cycling, Chueh’s team builds pouch cells in which the positive and negative electrodes are surrounded by an electrolyte solution where lithium ions move freely.

When a battery charges, lithium ions flow into the negative electrode for storage. When a battery discharges, they flow back out and travel to the positive electrode; this triggers a flow of electrons for powering devices, from electric cars to the electricity grid.

The positive electrode of a newly minted battery is 100% full of lithium, said Xiao Cui, the lead researcher for the battery informatics team in Chueh’s lab. Every time the battery goes through a charge-discharge cycle, some of the lithium is deactivated. Minimizing those losses prolongs the battery’s working lifetime.

Oddly enough, one way to minimize the overall lithium loss is to deliberately lose a large percentage of the initial supply of lithium during the battery’s first charge, Cui said. It’s like making a small investment that yields good returns down the road.

This first-cycle lithium loss is not in vain. The lost lithium becomes part of a squishy layer called the solid electrolyte interphase, or SEI, that forms on the surface of the negative electrode during the first charge. In return, the SEI protects the negative electrode from side reactions that would accelerate the lithium loss and degrade the battery faster over time. Getting the SEI just right is so important that the first charge is known as the formation charge.

“Formation is the final step in the manufacturing process,” Cui said, “so if it fails, all the value and effort invested in the battery up to that point are wasted.”

High charging current boosts battery performance

Manufacturers generally give new batteries their first charge with low currents, on the theory that this will create the most robust SEI layer. But there’s a downside: Charging at low currents is time-consuming and costly and doesn’t necessarily yield optimal results. So, when recent studies suggested that faster charging with higher currents does not degrade battery performance, it was exciting news.

But researchers wanted to dig deeper. The charging current is just one of dozens of factors that go into the formation of SEI during the first charge. Testing all possible combinations of them in the lab to see which one worked best is an overwhelming task.

To whittle the problem down to manageable size, the research team used scientific machine learning to identify which factors are most important in achieving good results. To their surprise, just two of them – the temperature and current at which the battery is charged – stood out from all the rest.

Experiments confirmed that charging at high currents has a huge impact, increasing the lifespan of the average test battery by 50%. It also deactivated a much higher percentage of lithium up front – about 30%, compared to 9% with previous methods – but that turned out to have a positive effect.

Removing more lithium ions up front is a bit like scooping water out of a full bucket before carrying it, Cui said. The extra headspace in the bucket decreases the amount of water splashing out along the way. In similar fashion, deactivating more lithium ions during SEI formation frees up headspace in the positive electrode and allows the electrode to cycle in a more efficient way, improving subsequent performance.

“Brute force optimization by trial-and-error is routine in manufacturing– how should we perform the first charge, and what is the winning combination of factors?” Chueh said. “Here, we didn’t just want to identify the best recipe for making a good battery; we wanted to understand how and why it works. This understanding is crucial for finding the best balance between battery performance and manufacturing efficiency.”

This research was funded by the Toyota Research Institute through its Accelerated Materials Design and Discovery program.

About SLAC

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory explores how the universe works at the biggest, smallest and fastest scales and invents powerful tools used by researchers around the globe. As world leaders in ultrafast science and bold explorers of the physics of the universe, we forge new ground in understanding our origins and building a healthier and more sustainable future. Our discovery and innovation help develop new materials and chemical processes and open unprecedented views of the cosmos and life’s most delicate machinery. Building on more than 60 years of visionary research, we help shape the future by advancing areas such as quantum technology, scientific computing and the development of next-generation accelerators.

SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

Website: INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH SCIENTIST AWARD

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Thursday, August 29, 2024

What does a Research Scientist do?

For anyone passionate about researching, making a career as a research scientist might be the best option. With excellent opportunities and strong earning potential, a research scientist gets to do detailed research about various fields. Becoming a research scientist promises a dynamic career path to interested individuals. Learning about the research scientist job description might help determine if this is a suitable career option. This article will elaborate on the qualifications, skills, duties and career growth opportunities of a research scientist.

What Is a Research Scientist?

A research scientist is a professional who performs research in a particular field and creates new concepts, theories and models. They work on cutting-edge research and collaborate with other researchers to develop new solutions and ideas. Moreover, they are responsible for investigating deficits within scientific knowledge. They formulate and execute investigation protocols and spread their insights to publishing documents and authoritative publications.
What Does a Research Scientist Do?

Research scientists work in several industries to advance scientific research. They plan and conduct experiments to expand the limits of scientific knowledge. Being a research scientist is fascinating as it offers limitless opportunities to discover across several industries and sectors. The major purpose of a research scientist is to conduct lab-based experiments and trials. Research scientists are required in multiple fields, including chemistry, biology, environmental science, computer science, medicine, and political science.
Research Scientist Responsibilities

Some of the major research scientist responsibilities include the following:Crafting research proposal
Planning and performing experiments
Sample collection
Monitoring the experiments
Data collection
Collaboration with other researchers to create new products and techniques
Guiding junior staff
Performing fieldwork on monitoring the environmental factors
Writing published papers
Staying updated with the latest scientific techniques