Open Postdoctoral position, faculty mentor Meagan Mauter

The Water & Energy Efficiency for the Environment Lab (WE3Lab) seeks 1-2 Postdoctoral Scholars with a vision for the coordinated operation of water systems and electricity grids to support affordable, decarbonized, and resilient water supply. These Postdocs will be funded as part of the industrial, agricultural, and water (IAW) FlexHub, recently established to assess the potential for flexible load operation from IAW sectors in California. Our scope of work for this project is to develop and test a set of digital tools that enable water utilities to value, assess, and deploy energy demand flexibility. This project will actualize previous energy flexibility research conducted by WE3Lab.

We seek to fill the following two positions:

1. The first Postdoctoral candidate will conduct fundamental or translational research optimizing advanced water treatment processes (e.g., reverse osmosis) to reduce costs and emissions while providing safe resilient supply. They should have documented experience with a variety of simulation and optimization techniques. Key areas of interest may include control theory, robust optimization, or distributed optimization.

2. The second candidate will focus on applied research with strong emphasis on developing, testing, and implementing optimized control or design strategies for water systems. They should have documented experience developing computational tools in water, or energy, or similar industrial sectors.

For both candidates, expertise in electricity grids, demand response programs, and rate structures is also highly valued.

The WE3Lab is a collaborative team of researchers with the mission of reducing the cost and carbon intensity of water desalination and reuse. Ongoing research efforts include 1) developing automated, precise, robust, intensified, modular, and electrified (A-PRIME) water desalination technologies to support a circular water economy; 2) optimizing the coordinated operation of decarbonized water and energy systems; and 3) supporting the design and enforcement of water-energy-food policies.

We are looking for new team members who enjoy team-science and engineering and would thrive in a dynamic, curious, team-oriented, and industrially connected environment. Our projects span multiple schools and centers at Stanford University as well as external collaborations with other universities, national laboratories, and municipal and non-profit partners. This environment provides many professional growth opportunities in academia, entrepreneurship, and public service.

Responsibilities include:

• Investigate cutting-edge techniques in system modeling, analysis, and optimization, to reduce costs and emissions while maintaining safe and resilient water supply.
• Contribute to advancing water and energy technologies by integrating digital workflows into ongoing research and development efforts.
• Collaborate closely with a diverse set of scholars, utilities, and water sector practitioners as part of the IAW FlexHub research efforts.
• Develop and manage research programs and conduct research activities. Support and expand the impact of projects conducted in the Lab.
• Identify, recommend and implement opportunities for new research.
• Source, collect and analyze data, create reports, review and explain trends; formulate and evaluate alternative solutions and/or recommendations to achieve the goals of the program or function.
• Write and/or edit complex content for proposals, research grants, peer-reviewed publications, and other program activities.
• Advise and mentor students.
• Present research and represent the Lab at relevant conferences and participate in relevant programming on campus.