Computational Scientist, ACER

Computational Scientist, ACER

Hiring Department: Technology Solutions

Location: Chicago, IL USA

Requisition ID: 1036655

Posting Close Date: September 22, 2025

Salary: The budgeted salary range for the position is $70,000 to $90,000

About the University of Illinois Chicago

UIC is among the nation’s preeminent urban public research universities, a Carnegie RU/VH research institution, and the largest university in Chicago. UIC serves over 34,000 students, comprising one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation and is designated as a Minority Serving Institution (MSI), an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPSI) and a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Through its 16 colleges, UIC produces nationally and internationally recognized multidisciplinary academic programs in concert with civic, corporate and community partners worldwide, including a full complement of health sciences colleges. By emphasizing cutting-edge and transformational research along with a commitment to the success of all students, UIC embodies the dynamic, vibrant and engaged urban university. Recent “Best Colleges” rankings published by U.S. News & World Report, found UIC climbed up in its rankings among top public schools in the nation and among all national universities. UIC has over 300,000 alumni, and is one of the largest employers in the city of Chicago.

Benefits eligible positions include a comprehensive benefits package which offers: Health, Dental, Vision, Life, Disability & AD&D insurance; a defined benefit pension plan; paid leaves such as Vacation, Holiday and Sick; tuition waivers for employees and dependents. Click for a complete list of Employee Benefits.

UIC ACER seeks a qualified Computational Scientist to join our impactful team and advance scientific discovery. If you are looking for an inclusive environment that provides challenges, learning opportunities, and work-life balance, then this opportunity is for you to consider. We also support our staff’s pursuit of further education through UIC's significant tuition waiver benefit. ACER also encourages staff exploration of emerging technologies such as deep learning, blockchain, IoT, and quantum computing. This is a hybrid position.

The successful candidate will work closely with researchers to help evaluate their computation needs and to develop solutions that allow them to take full advantage of available resources. The individual will provide researchers support and guidance in using advanced computing and data systems to perform cutting-edge research across a broad range of disciplines and will collaborate with them to develop scientific workflows to advance their research. They will work on a broad range of projects across the campus with opportunities to specialize in a number of domain areas. The position works closely with the Assistant Director of Research Facilitation and Outreach to build strong relationships with our users and to communicate their needs effectively. Finally, this position will develop and run training sessions related to research computing for researchers across the campus.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Participate as a member of a highly technical and customer-service driven team. Readily share knowledge and training with other staff members, and forge close working relationships with scientific research groups across campus.
• Conduct investigations and tests of complex scientific software systems to enhance performance or to investigate and resolve matters of significance. Investigate new technologies and techniques of importance to researchers.
• Participate in developing computational pipelines, computer algorithms, and data analysis for ongoing research projects.
• Evaluate, install, upgrade and maintain scientific software with the assistance of graduate students.
• Serve as a technical consultant for sponsored research projects that require high-performance computing, storage, and networking services.
• Provide workshops and one-on-one technical assistance and training to faculty, staff and students in the use of a shared high-performance computing environment and associated scientific software.
• Develop training materials to educate graduate students and faculty members on new computational techniques that utilize advanced cyberinfrastructure.
• Represent team in campus level initiatives and faculty level meetings to build strong relationships with faculty and their labs.
• Assist the Director in grant writing, proposal development and protocol reengineering for scientific needs.
• Perform other related duties and participate in special projects as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in a relevant field such as computer science, computer information systems or other science and engineering disciplines
• Experience with machine learning and/or image analysis algorithms and architectures.
• Experience working with GPU co-processers and associated programming platforms (e.g., CUDA, OpenCC or OpenCL)
• Familiarity with shared memory and distributed memory parallelism (such as OpenMP, MPI, and OpenACC), accelerators (such as GPUs), and large-scale file systems
• Demonstrated ability and experience with scripting and programming (e.g., Python, C, R, Bash).
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills are required.

• Advanced degree such as PhD in a STEM field such as Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Material Science
• Familiarity with numerical methods, simulations, modeling, and/or large-scale computation
• Knowledge and experience in one or more scientific programming language such as C, C++ or MATLAB.
• Experiences in container technologies (Docker, Singularity) and cloud computing solutions, and other technology used in various domains.
• Ability to manage multiple assigned tasks and projects with minimal supervision.

The University of Illinois System is an equal opportunity employer, including but not limited to disability and/or veteran status, and complies with all applicable state and federal employment mandates. Please visit Required Employment Notices and Posters to view our non-discrimination statement and find additional information about required background checks, sexual harassment/misconduct disclosures, and employment eligibility review through E-Verify.

The university provides accommodations to applicants and employees. Request an Accommodation