Specialist Technician (IAC Facility)

Salary:

£29,605 - £32,982 (Grade G) or

£32,982 - £37,099 (Grade H) per annum, depending on experience

The role

A fantastic opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic and experienced Specialist Technician (Level 1 or Level 2 depending on skills & experience) based in the University of Bristol, Faculty of Science, School of Physics, IAC Facility.

The IAC facility comprises of a suite of laboratories within the School of Physics at the University of Bristol. This includes over twenty million pounds worth of microscopy equipment, including scanning electron microscopes, transmission electron microscopes, focused ion beam, X-ray diffraction, X-ray tomography and high-speed atomic force microscopes, as well as laboratories for specimen preparation, thin film materials growth and corrosion experiments. The facility is used by researchers across the University and with industrial partners to analyse the structure of materials for a wide variety of research projects, including nuclear forensics, materials degradation, geology and semiconductor development.

 The technical staff that run the IAC facility are essential to support the work both of students and postdoctoral researchers in the university, as well as our extensive external research collaborations, in particular with the energy industry. This role is for a Specialist Technician to manage the day-to-day operation of the facility, ensuring that the instruments and laboratories are operational and organised, coordinating the training of new users and liaising with equipment manufacturers in the event of technical issues. 

What will you be doing?

• Responsibility for managing the maintenance of instruments and laboratory space, including purchasing of consumables and interactions with microscope service representatives.
• Training users on equipment.
• Working with researchers to provide specialist solutions to research experiments (e.g., designing a vacuum chamber or mechanical stress rig).
• Coordinate the training of staff, students and other technical and academic colleagues in the use of the facility, assigning tasks to the other staff as needed.
• Support bespoke research requests from researchers in the facility and associated research groups and liaise with the mechanical and electronics workshops. 
• Be readily available within the facility labs to address challenges and queries as they arise.
• Meet regularly with the other facility staff to assign new training, research and access requests as they arise through the facility’s electronic access request and booking systems.
• Supporting outreach activities, both externally to schools and festivals, and internally to attract usage of the facility.

You should apply if

Applicants should be comfortable with managing multiple concurrent tasks and would benefit from technical experience in a scientific or engineering setting. It is desirable for candidates to have a laboratory management and/or microscopy experience.

Applicants should be enthusiastic about working with research students and academics, and passionate about keeping their work environment organised and efficient. Applicants are expected to be good communicators both for in-person interactions with users and in meetings, as well as via email and digital systems.

Additional information

Interviews are anticipated to take place week commencing Monday 8th July 2024

For informal queries, contact details: Tomas Martin tomas.martin@bristol.ac.uk

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