Senior Scientist – Air Quality Modeling

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California.

📋 Description

• Contribute to the development and enhancement of a strategic research portfolio in air quality by identifying new opportunities and supporting impactful workstreams.

• Lead the proposal development process as the technical lead and coordinate competitive grant and contract submissions.

• Act as Principal Investigator on funded projects, taking responsibility for the scientific scope, budget management, deliverables, and reporting to funders.

• Oversee the creation, development, and maintenance of scalable scientific tools, products, and cloud-based data pipelines on AWS to facilitate research production and reproducibility.

• Lead and contribute to peer-reviewed publications, technical reports, and rapid-response analyses; communicate findings to policymakers, community organizations, agencies, and the media.

• Directly supervise staff through regular check-ins, performance evaluations, and active mentorship; assist with hiring and onboarding as the team expands.

• Lead or co-lead proposals for major grants and contracts, and engage in funder stewardship.

• Represent PSE externally as a recognized expert in air quality through publications, media engagement, conference presentations, expert testimony, and participation in regulatory advisory processes.

• Manage daily project operations, including budget and timeline monitoring, deliverable coordination, timesheet approvals, expense tracking, and funder reporting.

• Serve as the primary supervisor for EM&E Branch staff, including overseeing lower-level supervisors.

⛳️ Requirements

• Ph.D. in atmospheric science, chemistry, engineering, or a related field (or a Master’s degree with significant equivalent experience) and a proven track record in air quality science.

• Senior Scientist I: At least 3+ years of post-doctoral (or equivalent) experience.

• Senior Scientist II: At least 5+ years of post-doctoral (or equivalent) experience with demonstrated strategic leadership and independence.

• Proven history of leading funded research as PI or co-PI, including peer-reviewed publications and/or expert testimony.

• Established experience at the science-policy interface with regulators, policymakers, and/or community stakeholders.

• Extensive expertise in air quality modeling (e.g., CMAQ, CAMx, WRF-Chem, GEOS-Chem, InMAP, AERMOD).

• Familiarity with emissions inventory tools (e.g., SMOKE) and processing large environmental datasets.

• Experience in building and managing high-performance computing workloads on AWS (EC2, S3, ParallelCluster, AMIs).

• Proficiency in Python and/or R for data analysis and workflow automation; comfort with Git/GitHub and AI-assisted coding tools.

• Experience in supervising staff with a proven ability to support performance, development, and well-being.

• Senior Scientist II candidates must demonstrate a track record of supervising staff across various career levels.

• Exceptional communication skills and the ability to excel in a collaborative, distributed, remote-first environment.

🏝️ Benefits

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.

• 401(k) with employer match.

• Flexible spending accounts.

• Flexible time off and 15 paid holidays.

• Opportunities for continued education and training.

• Flexible working hours and options for remote work.