California Licensed Plume Scientist

Job Summary

Leading plume forecasting for balloon-based tracer campaigns, the full-time California Licensed Plume Scientist will develop in-house forecasting capabilities, quantify forecast uncertainty, and model plume evolution to support field studies, with options for remote work or on-site collaboration in San Francisco.

Key responsibilities

• Lead plume forecasting for balloon-based tracer campaigns and develop in-house capabilities
• Quantify forecast uncertainty and document performance limits for potential field studies
• Model detailed plume evolution to support numerical experiments and verify forecasts against observations

Required qualifications

• PhD in atmospheric science, fluid dynamics, or a closely related field, or equivalent research experience
• Experience running high-resolution or large-eddy simulations of dispersing material
• Hands-on forecasting or mission-science experience on airborne or balloon field campaigns
• Proficiency in Python and ideally Fortran on high-performance computing systems
• Ability to communicate model results clearly to diverse audiences