Intern, R&D Graduate Summer

About the Role

The Storm Chasers Grand Challenge at Sandia National Laboratories is seeking Graduate Summer Interns to conduct basic and applied research on weather, structural, thermal, fluid, and aero phenomena related to advanced vehicle design. You will be mentored by staff engineers and work closely with test engineers and technologists to conduct this research. A successful graduate internship will provide you exposure to work in a national laboratory environment and relevant engineering experience.

The internships available span multiple engineering and science disciplines, including:

• Aerospace Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Computational Science
• Applied Mathematics
• Chemical Engineering
• Materials Engineering

The selected applicant can work a combination of onsite and offsite work. The selected applicant must live within a reasonable distance for commuting to the assigned work location when necessary.

Key Responsibilities

On any given day, you may be called on to:

• Assist staff to conduct experiments or computational simulations in weather, fluid mechanics, particle dynamics/mechanics, or structural vibration.
• Perform surrogate and/or data-driven modeling in these topic areas.
• Participate in and contribute to experiments including wind tunnel testing, high-speed particle impact, large-scale testing, among others.
• Conduct engineering analysis on experimental and computational data.
• Present your results to a project team.

Salary Range

Interns earn competitive pay rates. The pay structure is based on earned credit hours, classification, and degree level. Your pay rate will be determined during the hire process and included in your offer package.

Requirements & Tech Stack

Qualifications We Require

• Earned bachelor's degree
• Currently attending and enrolled full time in the spring term immediately preceding the internship (or scheduled to graduate in the spring) in an accredited science, engineering, or math graduate program
• Minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0/4.0
• Ability to work up to 40 hours per week during the summer
• Ability to secure and maintain a U.S. security clearance which requires U.S. citizenship.
• If you have not yet started your graduate program, please apply to an undergraduate intern position.

Qualifications We Desire

• Excellent scientific writing and presentation skills.
• Experience with laboratory test setup, test execution, and test documentation.
• Experience with data analysis software (e.g., Python, Matlab) and data acquisition equipment (e.g., NI/Labview).
• Experience with mechanical design tools (e.g., Solidworks).
• Experience with machine learning and surrogate modeling.
• Experience with computational simulation tools (e.g., Ansys, Abaqus, US3D, CFD++, among others).
• Experience with meshing & viz tools (e.g., Pointwise, Cubit, Paraview, Tecplot, Ensight, among others).

About Our Team

The Storm Chaser's team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, offers challenging and important work relating to national security in R&D and technology applications in aerodynamics, aerothermodynamics, compressible fluid mechanics, and flight dynamics. The Storm Chasers Grand Challenge spans topics such as weather, advanced vehicles, multi-phase flows, and surrogate modeling. Technical activities include experimental, computational, and analytical efforts.

About Sandia

Sandia National Laboratories is the nation's premier science and engineering lab for national security and technology innovation. Flexible work arrangements for many positions include 9/80 and 4/10 compressed workweeks, part-time work, and telecommuting. Offers generous vacation, strong medical and other benefits, competitive 401k, learning opportunities, relocation assistance and amenities aimed at creating a solid work/life balance.

Security Clearance

Sandia is required by DOE to conduct a pre-employment drug test and background review. Applicants for employment need to be able to obtain and maintain a DOE L-level security clearance, which requires U.S. citizenship. If you hold more than one citizenship (i.e., of the U.S. and another country), your ability to obtain a security clearance may be impacted. Applicants offered employment with Sandia are subject to a federal background investigation. Substance abuse or illegal drug use, falsification of information, criminal activity, serious misconduct or other indicators of untrustworthiness can cause a clearance to be denied or terminated by the DOE.