Associate Research Scientist (Weiss Lab)

Applications are invited for an individual to be appointed as a part-time Associate Research Scientist in The Weiss Lab at NYU Chemistry. The chosen candidate will be responsible for performing the following duties:

• Integration of automation in BSL-1/2+ labs.
• Robotic liquid handling & custom robotic design and integration: This role will develop custom stepper and BLDC motor drivers for FOC control of multi-stage robotic systems.
• Remote Monitoring & IoT. Using MQTT brokers and Firebase, the engineer will build systems to monitor incubator CO2 levels, temperature, and door states.
• Custom Control Circuits: You’ll design custom interfaces that allow remote systems to trigger physical actions in the lab, such as operating equipment or moving samples.
• Frontier Single-Molecule Live Imaging.
• High-Speed Data Pipelines: This role will manage the interfaces to ensure that terabytes of real-time high-speed data are stored correctly without data loss.
• Hardware Synchronization: This role will ensure the amplification stages and MOSFET-based device are synchronized at near-ns resolution.

In compliance with NYC’s Pay Transparency Act, the annual base salary for this role is $26/hr. New York University considers factors such as (but not limited to) the specific grant funding and the terms of the research grant when extending an offer.

This position is based in New York, and the selected candidate will be expected to work onsite as of their effective start date.

Electrical engineering expertise - Master’s degree or higher. Serve as the domain expert and primary collaborator with biology experts working on building systems that require advanced EE.

Experience with computer hardware communication bus protocols: USB, I2C, I2S, CSI, Ethernet, SPI, PCIe, HDMI, CAN, serial comms, etc

Strong communication - You can explain complex physical behavior clearly, write structured technical reports, and align cross-functional teams around root causes and next steps

Experience with:

Electrical Engineering & Simulation: MATLAB, Simulink, LTSpice, Multisim, Logisim, Electric, LabView, Vivado, Wireshark, PSS/E, OpenDSS, ASPEN One-Liner, Cadence.

IoT & Embedded Systems: Firebase (Realtime DB, Auth, FCM), MQTT/Mosquitto Broker, PubSubClient, Arduino IDE, NodeMCU Firmware, SIM800L/SIM900f GSM Modules

Programming & Development Environments: MPLab, MobaXterm, NetBeans, Eclipse, Linux, Anaconda3, cmder, Jupyter Notebook, Google Colab, GitHub

CAD & Design: Auto CAD, Optical CAD, RoboDK (Robot Simulation & Offline Programming), Microsoft Office Suite

Programming Languages: Hardware-Level & Digital Design: Verilog, VHDL, Assembly. Data Science & Machine Learning: Python (Pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib, Seaborn, Keras, TensorFlow, PyTorch) Systems & Networking: C, C++ (TCP/IP Protocols, LAN/WAN/MPLS Systems)

Cloud Services: Google Firebase (Firestore, Auth, FCM Messaging), SQLite, RESTful APIs

Backend: Flask and Laravel integrations with Firebase and MQTT brokers

DevOps & Deployment: GitHub, Netlify (CI/CD for React), Heroku (Python App Hosting), modular API schema for team-based dev

Microcontrollers: ESP8266 NodeMCU, Arduino Uno, Raspberry Pi, Basys 3 Artix-7 FPGA

Electrical Components: Oscilloscopes, Function Generators, DC Power Supplies, DMMs, Wave Generator, DC Motor, Tacho Generator, Incremental & Gray Encoders, Potentiometers

IoT Sensors & Devices: MQ2 Gas Sensor, DHT11/DHT20 Temp & Humidity, Hall Effect Magnetic Sensor, PIR Motion Sensor, LIBO Electronic Deadbolt Lock, LCD Displays, 4x4 Keypads, RGB LEDs, Relay Modules

To be considered, all applicants must submit a cover letter summarizing their research experience and specifying their interest in this position, a curriculum vitae, and two contact references.