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Posted: 12-Feb-26
Location: Gaithersburg, Maryland
Type: Full-time
Salary: Starting at 82,764.00
Categories:
Internal Number: A-181481-26
General Description
PREP Research Associate
This position is part of the National Institute of Standards (NIST) Professional Research Experience (PREP) program. NIST recognizes that its research staff may wish to collaborate with researchers at academic institutions on specific projects of mutual interest, thus requires that such institutions must be the recipient of a PREP award. The PREP program requires staff from a wide range of backgrounds to work on scientific research in many areas. Employees in this position will perform technical work that underpins the scientific research of the collaboration.
Project Description: The goal of this project is to reduce firefighter deaths and injuries due to flashover and to enhance firefighting safety and situational awareness in commercial building environments.
Flashover is an extreme fire event. When it occurs, there is a near-simultaneous ignition of most of the directly exposed combustible materials within a compartment. Due to the large heat release rate, gas temperatures increase rapidly and may exceed 800 °C. Rapid fire progression, such as flashover, is the number-two cause of firefighter deaths and injuries. Over the past 10 years, approximately 700 firefighters were killed and more than 200,000 were injured. Unfortunately, there are still no tools that firefighters can use to detect flashover, so they rely on their past experience using so-called flashover indicators that are difficult to recognize. For these reasons, researchers at NIST have been developing data-driven models that can be used to help firefighters predict the potential of flashover.
Existing modeling approaches cannot be used in real-time firefighting due to two major problems. The first problem is that the existing models are numerically inefficient for real-time applications. Even when high performance computing is being used, a single calculation takes more than 5 minutes. The second problem is that the fire scenarios being considered by these models are oversimplified. Sensors are assumed to work at extremely high temperatures and the fire locations and vent opening conditions are assumed to be well known. In real-life situations, however, sensors will fail and the inside conditions are never known. NIST has established a smart firefighting project to enhance firefighting safety and situational awareness by enabling real-time prediction of flashover conditions in commercial building environments. To reach this goal, the relationships of fire data, such as temperature, smoke, and species concentrations, and the effect of data quality, must be understood to use machine learning for effective real-time predictions.
The work will entail and there are three main research thrusts:
Key responsibilities will include but are not limited to:
1. Acquire fire data, including gas temperatures, smoke concentrations, and gas species concentrations from realistic fire scenarios in commercial building environments using CFAST Data Generation (CData). The scenarios include various arbitrary building structures, different fire locations, a wide range of burning items, various door and window opening conditions simulating fire events such as glass breakage and evacuation, and operational temperature limits for fire protection sensors to account for loss of sensor signals. The PREP researcher will be responsible for collecting fire data from realistic fire scenarios and will lead the study of data behavior.
2. Develop an accurate and numerically efficient prediction model that can correlate flashover conditions to the corresponding temperature behaviors. The model not only needs to overcome the limitations of available fire data, but it must be generalized so that the model can be applied to any building structures without the need of prior knowledge of the building layout and interior conditions. The PREP researcher will be responsible for helping to develop the model and will lead in optimizing the model.
3. Collaborate and coordinate our research with the existing fire research community which is focusing on fundamental studies of the onset of flashover, development of machine learning based models, integration of fire modeling into fire protection systems, etc. The purpose of this thrust is to use our data to reduce firefighter deaths and injuries due to flashover by supporting the development of data-driven modeling framework to enhance firefighting safety and situational awareness. The PREP researcher will help develop research plans and assist in the transfer of NIST research to stakeholders by participating in meetings, giving presentations, and preparing reports.
Qualifications
- US Citizen Preferred
- A Ph.D. degree in Architecture and Civil Engineering, Safety Science and Engineering, Safety Engineering, Fire Protection Engineering, or similar field.
- Solid background on Fire Safety/Protection Engineering is preferred.
- Proficient in CData, CFAST, FDS.
- Proficient in Python, MATLAB, and R.
- Well-established publication record in Q1 SCI journals.
- Practical research experience in building recommendation systems and use of computer clusters.
Application Instructions
Please upload the following with your application:
- CV/Resume
*Please limit C.V to 3 pages only and ONLY include a valid email address for your contact info. Your resume will not be considered if the following information is included on your CV/resume.
- Self portraits
- Phone number
- Home address/Country
- Citizenship status
- Languages spoken
- Sex/Gender
-
Privacy Act Statement
Authority: 15 U.S.C. § 278g-1(e)(1) and (e)(3) and 15 U.S.C. § 272(b) and (c)
Purpose: The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) hosts the Professional Research Experience Program (PREP) which is designed to provide valuable laboratory experience and financial assistance to undergraduates, post-bachelor's degree holders, graduate students, master's degree holders, postdocs, and faculty.
PREP is a 5-year cooperative agreement between NIST laboratories and participating PREP Universities to establish a collaborative research relationship between NIST and U.S. institutions of higher education in the following disciplines including (but may not be limited to) biochemistry, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, engineering, electronics, materials science, mathematics, nanoscale science, neutron science, physical science, physics, and statistics. This collection of information is needed to facilitate administrative functions of the PREP Program.
Routine Uses: NIST will use the information collected to perform the requisite reviews of the applications to determine eligibility, and to meet programmatic requirements. Disclosure of this information is also subject to all the published routine uses as identified in the Privacy Act System of Records Notices: NIST-1: NIST Associates.
Disclosure: Furnishing this information is voluntary. When you submit the form, you are indicating your voluntary consent for NIST to use of the information you submit for the purpose stated.
Salary Range
The referenced salary range represents the minimum and maximum salaries for this position and is based on Johns Hopkins University's good faith belief at the time of posting. Not all candidates will be eligible for the upper end of the salary range. The actual compensation offered to the selected candidate may vary and will ultimately depend on multiple factors, which may include the successful candidate's geographic location, skills, work experience, internal equity, market conditions, education/training and other factors, as reasonably determined by the University.
Total Rewards
Johns Hopkins offers a total rewards package that supports our employees' health, life, career and retirement. More information can be found here: https://hr.jhu.edu/benefits-worklife/.
Equal Opportunity Employer
The Johns Hopkins University is committed to equal opportunity for its faculty, staff, and students. To that end, the university does not discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status or other legally protected characteristic. The university is committed to providing qualified individuals access to all academic and employment programs, benefits and activities on the basis of demonstrated ability, performance and merit without regard to personal factors that are irrelevant to the program involved.
Pre-Employment Information
If you are interested in applying for employment with The Johns Hopkins University and require special assistance or accommodation during any part of the pre-employment process, please contact the HR Business Services Office at jhurecruitment@jhu.edu. For TTY users, call via Maryland Relay or dial 711. For more information about workplace accommodations or accessibility at Johns Hopkins University, please visit accessibility.jhu.edu.
Background Checks
The successful candidate(s) for this position will be subject to a pre-employment background check including education verification.
EEO is the Law:
https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-06/22-088_EEOC_KnowYourRights6.12ScreenRdr.pdf
Vaccine Requirements
Johns Hopkins University strongly encourages, but no longer requires, at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The COVID-19 vaccine does not apply to positions located in the State of Florida. We still require all faculty, staff, and students to receive the seasonal flu vaccine. Exceptions to the COVID and flu vaccine requirements may be provided to individuals for religious beliefs or medical reasons. Requests for an exception must be submitted to the JHU vaccination registry. This change does not apply to the School of Medicine (SOM). SOM hires must be fully vaccinated with an FDA COVID-19 vaccination and provide proof of vaccination status. For additional information, applicants for SOM positions should visit https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccine/ and all other JHU applicants should visit https://covidinfo.jhu.edu/health-safety/covid-vaccination-information/.
The following additional vaccine requirements may apply, depending upon your campus. Please contact the hiring department for more information. The pre-employment physical for positions in clinical areas, laboratories, working with research subjects, or involving community contact requires documentation of immune status against Rubella (German measles), Rubeola (Measles), Mumps, Varicella (chickenpox), Hepatitis B and documentation of having received the Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccination. This may include documentation of having two (2) MMR vaccines; two (2) Varicella vaccines; or antibody status to these diseases from laboratory testing. Blood tests for immunities to these diseases are ordinarily included in the pre-employment physical exam except for those employees who provide results of blood tests or immunization documentation from their own health care providers. Any vaccinations required for these diseases will be given at no cost in our Occupational Health office.
