Geospatial Geologist

The Leidos Research Support Team (LRST) supporting the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is seeking a Geospatial Geologist to join our team in Morgantown, WV. This is an opportunity to execute fundamental and applied research with world-class scientists and engineers using state of the art equipment to perform research aligned with the goals of the U.S. Department of Energy. The successful candidate will conduct high-impact research focused on accelerating carbon management utilizing Python and GIS workflows.

Accelerating carbon management – Current CO2 (carbon dioxide) transport and storage efforts are focused on developing federated, dynamic geospatial databases and data-driven tools that leverage key geologic, social, environmental, and infrastructure (e.g., wellbores, pipelines, etc.) datasets to ultimately inform safe CO2 injection and transport operations and associated infrastructure planning across the country.

  

Location: This position is based at the NETL lab in Morgantown, WV. Only candidates near (or willing to relocate to) the Morgantown, WV area will be considered.

What this opportunity with NETL uniquely provides you:

• Working on applied, cutting-edge projects with global impact while being mentored by the nation’s leading energy scientists and engineers.  
• Real-world experience supplemented with technical development and discussions that provide unique insight into the broad range of mission critical engineering and scientific disciplines NETL leverages to support national energy research and policy development. 
• Access to world-class, customized facilities and computational assets specific to high impact energy research, technology generation, and product development. 
• Support proposal development focused on expanding industry and scientific partnerships and developing new technical opportunities for NETL with federal guidance. 

Primary Responsibilities:

• Support the identification, acquisition, processing, and integration of non-spatial and spatial data using Geographic Information System (GIS) software and Python scripting.
• Identify credible data sources through extensive literature reviews and online research, then acquire and process data for further analytics.
• Develop and apply computational geodata science methods to augment geospatial analysis. 
• Develop, query, manage, and maintain contextual and spatial databases, and structure/restructure existing databases for a range of experimental and spatial uses. 
• Utilize Python (version 3+) to acquire, process, and analyze spatial and non-spatial multivariate data, as well as develop data analysis and visualization tools. 
• Support quality assurance and control of geospatial data products and associated metadata prior to public release.
• Support energy research by leveraging scientific, spatial, statistical analytics, as well as appropriate artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms.
• Collaborate with an interdisciplinary team, including geologists, geographers, chemists, computer scientists, environmental scientists, and other researchers to assist each other in accomplishing project related tasks.
• Build and maintain relationships with internal and external clients.
• Lead in writing methods, results, and data interpretations for publications in high quality, scientific peer-reviewed journals, and technical reports.
• Develop and present results for oral presentations to staff, stakeholders, and at professional conferences.
• Provide weekly and monthly technical updates to research team members and project management.
• Provide leadership and expertise on projects including delegation to team members and communication of project milestone status to management.
• Work independently to achieve day-to-day objectives with significant impact on operational results or project deliverables.
• Develops technical solutions that require collaboration with internal experts, deep analyses and understanding of impact on end-product/solution.
• Develops solutions to technical problems and issues that are unclear and require deep technical knowledge.
• Leverage extensive subsurface geological knowledge to provide expert interpretation of data and direct project team on industry best practices.
• Responsible for coaching, mentoring, and reviewing the work of lower-level technical staff.
• Responsible for entire projects or processes within a technical area.

Required Education, Experience & Other:

• Master’s degree with 3+ years of research experience in Geology, Geography, Geospatial Information Sciences, Environmental Sciences, or energy related R&D field.
• Experience and knowledge of geologic and natural-engineered subsurface systems as it relates to carbon storage.
• Competent in non-spatial and spatial data acquisition, management, handling, and analytics.
• Familiar with structural geology knowledge related to petroleum development and reservoir evaluation.
• Experienced with Esri products (i.e., ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Online) and other open-source GIS software (i.e., QGIS).
• Proficiency with Python for advanced coding needs, including using Python to automate analysis and build data visualization tools. 
• Experience working with vector and raster subsurface data, including wellbore attributes, geologic maps, geochemical samples, geophysical, and other critical energy infrastructure datasets.
• Experience identifying, acquiring, and processing credible data (including tabular and spatial data) and metadata from online sources.
• Experience collaborating on a dynamic team.
• Leadership skills coordinating multiple teams and projects.
• Must be able to meet the requirements for gaining access to work on the NETL campus.
• Must be a U.S. citizen.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience developing Esri web applications, including Experience Builder, Dashboards, and Story Maps.
• Experience with and willingness to learn AI (Artificial Intelligence)/ML (Machine Learning) techniques.
• Familiarity with geologic industry (i.e., oil and gas, mining) software, including but not limited to Petra, Petrel, EarthVision, Leapfrog, or OpendTect.

Salary Range for this position: $95K to $105K

Original Posting Date:

2024-11-15

While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range:

Pay Range $81,250.00 - $146,875.00

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.