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Salary: USD 125,000 - 150,000 / annual
Alta Resource Technologies is a next-generation mining company founded in 2023 that uses synthetic biology to separate critical minerals from conventional, unconventional, and e-waste sources. The company is addressing a historic supply-chain challenge: exponential growth in mineral demand from new tech and IT sectors is stressing existing supply streams. Alta is developing and scaling novel technologies to meet demand, diversify supply, and produce minerals sustainably.
You will join a small R&D team in Boulder working on the resins and adsorbents central to Alta's separation process. This is a bench-heavy role (approximately 70% hands-on laboratory work) reporting to the Principal Scientist / Group Lead for Adsorbent Chemistry.
Key responsibilities include:
• Resin Synthesis & Functionalization: Develop and implement in-house methods for porous resin synthesis, surface functionalization, and ligand attachment to produce adsorbents with defined chemical and physical properties.
• Resin Characterization: Develop and qualify analytical methods for resin composition, functional group density, ligand loading, porosity, and particle properties—and understand the limits of each method well enough to know when results should not be trusted.
• Performance Evaluation: Connect material properties to process outcomes (protein immobilization, adsorption capacity, selectivity, stability, separation performance) by working alongside protein chemistry and process engineering teams.
• Process Development: Establish reproducible synthesis and functionalization workflows at the bench, optimize reaction conditions, and identify critical process parameters governing resin quality.
• Tech Transfer: Translate workflows into process specifications enabling others to produce the same resin at larger scale and support integration into Alta's adsorbent manufacturing workflows.
• Documentation & Communication: Maintain rigorous experimental records, author SOPs and test methods, analyze and interpret data, and communicate results, risks, and recommendations clearly to cross-functional R&D, process engineering teams, executives, and external stakeholders.
REQUIREMENTS:
Education & Experience:
• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in chemical engineering, polymer science and engineering, materials science, chemistry, or closely related field, with hands-on laboratory experience working with porous materials (M.S. or Ph.D. highly preferred)
• Experience requirements by degree: B.S. (5–7+ years), M.S. (3–5+ years), Ph.D. (2+ years)
Core Technical Skills:
• Hands-on experience synthesizing porous polymer or inorganic materials; ability to explain which formulation and process variables you changed and how pore structure responded
• Working command of at least two porosity or particle characterization techniques (N₂/Ar physisorption including BET/BJH/DFT pore size distributions, mercury intrusion porosimetry, inverse size-exclusion chromatography, SEM, or laser diffraction particle sizing)
• Practical wet chemistry on solid supports: running covalent surface modifications and quantifying results by titration, elemental analysis, colorimetric assay, or equivalent
• Demonstrated ability to run structured experimental campaigns—isolating variables, designing around confounds, and drawing defensible conclusions
• Rigorous documentation habits, including detailed ELN records and authorship of SOPs or test methods that others have successfully followed
• Comfort operating with limited supervision amid shifting priorities in a fast-paced R&D environment
Preferred Qualifications:
• Direct experience making cross-linked porous beads by suspension, emulsion, or dispersion polymerization (styrene–divinylbenzene, methacrylate/acrylate systems, polyHIPE, or seeded-swelling routes)
• Post-polymerization modification of porous supports (chloromethylation, epoxide ring-opening, amination, activation chemistries)
• Immobilization of proteins, peptides, or enzymes on solid supports with measurement of loading, retained activity, and leaching
• Packed-bed column evaluation (breakthrough curves, dynamic binding capacity, pressure drop, multi-cycle studies)
• Materials lifetime and degradation testing under aggressive process conditions
• Scale-up from gram to kilogram batches and tech transfer to toll manufacturers or CMOs
• Design of experiments and statistical analysis
• Prior experience at a resin, chromatography media, or adsorbent manufacturer
• Proven ability to lead projects, method development, and data analysis with advanced technical leadership
Welcomed Backgrounds:
• Bioseparations / protein chromatography
• Polymer and colloid chemistry
• Sorbent and separations engineering
