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Energy & Materials Intern- XRD Advanced Analysis


Job Location:

Los Altos, CA - USA

Hourly Salary: $ 45 - 65
Posted: 19 June 2026 (30+ days ago)
Application Deadline: 16 September 2026
Vacancies: 1 Vacancy
The job posting is outdated and position may be filled

Job Summary

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI) were on a mission to improve the quality of human life. Were developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this transformative shift in mobility weve built a world-class team advancing the state of the art in AI robotics driving and material sciences.

This is a paid 12-week internship opportunity and is a hybrid in-office role.

Heres a glimpse into the Internship experience from some of our TRI interns!


The Team:
The Accelerated Materials Design and Discovery (AMDD) Team at Toyota Research Institute is focused on accelerating the design and discovery of new materials to enable emissions-free mobility. Materials are at the heart of clean energy technologies such as batteries fuel cells solar cells hydrogen electrolysis and carbon capture and discovering new materials can deliver the breakthroughs needed to displace traditional fossil fuels. Our team develops tools to overcome roadblocks in the materials discovery process using software machine learning robotics and automation. Our customers are scientists and engineers advancing new batteries fuel cell catalysts and other materials development projects. By increasing the speed of discovery we can iterate faster and bring new materials from the lab to the world at a much-needed faster pace.
The Opportunity:
The intern will work within the AMDD team on a project focused on developing advanced analysis tools and pipelines for X-Ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of mixed-metal oxide thin-films. They will use and develop automated Rietveld refinement tools to label XRD patterns and understand structure-property-processing relationships across a compositionally diverse dataset. They will perform phase identification on XRD patterns ranging from unary to ternary metal-oxides and develop pipelines to perform automatic or human-assisted labeling of experimental data. They will investigate crystallite size texturing and strain across the dataset. This work will contribute to the development of automated workflows for phase identification from XRD an essential bottleneck in accelerating high-throughput materials discovery.
Responsibilities
  • Scope the project to align with the core research efforts.

  • Be the primary driver of the technical plan (e.g. model development analysis plan) with regular feedback from mentors.

  • Execute the project using TRI resources.

  • Present the projects approach and findings in research meetings.

Qualifications
  • Pursuing a PhD in Materials Science Chemistry Physics or related fields.

  • Familiar with running tabletop or synchrotron XRD experiments.

  • 2 years experience in performing Rietveld refinement bonus if familiar with analyzing different materials classes.

  • Experience with basic data analysis in Python.

  • A track record of executing research projects evidenced by journal publications.

  • Strong communication skills and ability to work and foster collaboration across interdisciplinary teams.

  • Desire to work on challenging and open-ended research projects.

Bonus Qualifications
  • Experience using XRD phase identification software e.g. DARA GSAS-II MAUD Spotlight.

  • Experience working with thin-film metal oxides.

  • Comfortable working with large datasets.

  • Experience with code best practices and collaborative software development using git.

The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $45 and $65/hour for California-based roles. Base pay offered will depend on multiple individualized factors including but not limited to a candidates experience skills job-related knowledge and market location. TRI offers a generous benefits package including medical dental and vision insurance and paid time off benefits (including holiday pay and sick time). Additional details regarding these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.
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TRI is fueled by a diverse and inclusive community of people with unique backgrounds education and life experiences. We are dedicated to fostering an innovative and collaborative environment by living the values that are an essential part of our culture. We believe diversity makes us stronger and are proud to provide Equal Employment Opportunity for all without regard to an applicants race color creed gender gender identity or expression sexual orientation national origin age physical or mental disability medical condition religion marital status genetic information veteran status or any other status protected under federal state or local laws.
It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process such as reviewing applications analyzing resumes or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed please contact us.

Required Experience:

Intern


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The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $45 and $65/hour for California-based roles. Base pay offered will depend on multiple individualized factors, including, but not limited to, a candidate's experience, skills, job-related knowledge, ... View more

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