Job Opportunities

Postdoctoral positions are available for candidates with the requisite qualifications.

The Dlott laboratory at the University of Illinois (UIUC) needs talented postdoctoral researchers in experimental chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering or aerospace engineering. The Dlott group has pioneered new experimental methods that use a pulsed laser to launch small hypervelocity (0-6 km/s or 0-Mach 20) projectiles to study hypervelocity impacts with very high time and space resolution. The primary areas of interest are materials under extreme conditions (defined as pressures up to 50 GPa and temperatures up to 6000K), energetic materials and materials for hypersonic vehicles.

These research areas ordinarily involve large-scale, low-throughput facilities to produce extreme conditions, but the Dlott laboratory has developed methods that can be used for high throughput experiments on a tabletop. Due to the high throughput and large data acquisition rates, these experiments are especially conducive to machine-learning materials discovery techniques.

In energetic materials the focus is on development of new high-speed optical diagnostic techniques such as hyperspectral imaging, understanding fundamental mechanisms, and machine-learning driven discovery of better energetic materials and energetic structural materials.
In hypersonic research the focus is on the machine-learning discovery of new materials for hypersonic vehicles that are resistant to erosion from atmospheric dust particles, raindrops or ice particles, using high-throughput experiments that resolve the physics and chemistry of the vehicle-particle interaction in real time.

This is multidisciplinary research in a Chemistry department because the frontiers of these research areas require understanding material and chemical transformations in hypervelocity impacts. However due to the multidisciplinary nature of this work, applicants without extensive chemistry experience are welcome, if they have experience in relevant fields.

Dlott group researchers are trained in the development of advanced instrumentation and the science of materials under extreme conditions. Recent Dlott group alumni have gone on to careers as professors, research scientists at government and industrial laboratories for instance Los Alamos, Livermore, Sandia and Northrup Grumman have recently hired Dlott group graduates, and as application engineers in industries such as Thorlabs, Intel and Thermo-Fisher.

Recent PhDs or those anticipating PhD degrees in the near future are encouraged to apply. Please send current CV to dlott@illinois.edu. If there is mutual interest in your application we will request 3 current letters of recommendation and a Zoom interview.