Geophysicist

Description

Leidos is hiring a Geophysicist with an active Top Secret clearance to join our US National Data Center (US NDC) team at the Air Force Technical Application Center (AFTAC) on Patrick Space Force Base, Florida. All work is onsite at Patrick Air Force Base on the magnificent Space Coast.

An active TS clearance with SCI eligibility is required to be considered for this role.

This qualified person will support a multi-year program for a nuclear test monitoring system.

In this role, you will work with an R&D scientific and technical team performing geophysical and engineering studies to enhance the operational performance of the system. This position involves analyzing, prototyping, testing, and evaluating changes to operational geophysical data processing. Duties will also include prototyping algorithms and optimizing configuration parameters to enhance the geophysical capabilities and performance of the system, especially its automated processing.

The US NDC is the geophysical data acquisition, data processing, reporting, and archiving component of the United States Atomic Energy Detection System (USAEDS) operated by AFTAC. AFTAC's mission is to monitor compliance with nuclear test ban treaties by acquiring, processing, reporting, and archiving data from a worldwide array of seismic, hydroacoustic and infrasonic sensors.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Investigate and evaluate third-party algorithms to improve automated US NDC event bulletins. Examples include phase association algorithms, machine learning algorithms, template matching algorithms, correlation algorithms, and dynamic event-driven processing.

• Tune seismic, hydroacoustic, and infrasonic detection and association algorithms and configurations to optimize performance.

• Perform waveform modeling. Investigate distance, depth, and azimuthal dependence on the Quality factor Q in specific regions.

• Compute regional phase (Pn, Lg) coda envelopes. Calibrate corresponding coda magnitudes.

• Reconcile seismic, hydroacoustic, and infrasonic station metadata.

• Provide technical geophysics expertise to assessing legacy analog nuclear test data.

• Support and validate software development of Moment Tensor software.

• Test, evaluate, and validate geophysical changes integrated into the US NDC data processing system.

• Provide knowledgeable expertise and recommendations to geophysical mission problems.

Basic Qualifications:

• BS in Physics, Mathematics, Geophysics, or related field with 4+ years of related experience or a MS and 2+ yrs of related experience. Additional experience processing and evaluating geophysical data may be considered in lieu of degree.

• Active Top Secret clearance with SCI eligibility

• Fluent with geophysical computation, evaluation, visualization, and modeling tools such as MATLAB, Python, Octave, R project, SAC, GMT, Computer Programs in Seismology (CPS), SPECFEM, Coda Calibration Tool (CCT), GeoTess, and Moment Tensor software.

• Experience with automated seismic/hydroacoustic/infrasonic signal detection, event formation, event magnitude, yield estimation, and statistical event identification/classification.

• Demonstrable competence in data processing areas such as digital signal processing, spectral analysis, waveform modeling, and uncertainty estimation.

• Competent in analysis techniques, metric development, and statistics.

• Experience with Red Hat Linux and scripting within RHEL.

• Experience querying databases with SQL and analyzing large datasets.

• Strong interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills to support collaboration with team members, end users, and management.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Proficient in programming in C, C , Java, Scheme, Fortran, Perl, or Python

• Familiarity with ML and/or AI algorithms, python libraries, and geophysical frameworks, such as deep neural networks, PyTorch, and SeisBench.

• Experience integrating algorithms into operational software.

• Familiar with configuration management/version control systems and problem tracking systems.

EIO2024

While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.