Senior Scientist - Computational Materials Science

Why Patients Need You 

Pfizer’s purpose is to deliver breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Research and Development is at the heart of fulfilling Pfizer’s purpose as we work to translate advanced science and technologies into the therapies and vaccines that matter most. Whether you are in the discovery sciences, ensuring drug safety and efficacy or supporting clinical trials, you will apply cutting edge design and process development capabilities to accelerate and bring the best-in-class medicines to patients around the world. 

What You Will Achieve 

An essential component of Pfizer, our Pharmaceutical Sciences function supports Pfizer’s early to late-stage portfolio translating new chemical entities into commercial drug products. In your role as a member of the Pharmaceutical Sciences team, you will work in a team which integrates Chemistry and Manufacturing and Controls capabilities - work that encompasses state of the art active pharmaceutical ingredient synthesis and drug product design, as well as a cGMP manufacturing and clinical trials supply chain. 

As a Computational Materials Scientist, you will apply state-of-the-art computational chemistry and crystallographic tools to predict the solid-state and particle properties of Pfizer molecules to streamline experimental efforts and to design better medicines. This will enable Pfizer project teams to de-risk their programs and to move rapidly into clinical studies with the goal of commercialization. The role is highly collaborative, requiring extensive work on multi-disciplinary project teams. With this role there is also a significant opportunity to publish peer reviewed research and to develop novel computational methods, addressing gaps in our current knowledge and capabilities. 

It is your hard work and dedication that will make Pfizer ready to achieve new milestones and help patients across the globe.   

How You Will Achieve It  

• Apply state-of-the-art physics based computational approaches to predict the properties and performance across range of molecules (R05 and bR05) 

• Conduct crystal structure prediction (CSP) calculations and free energy calculations for polymorph stability ranking 

• Utilize various physics/informatics (i.e. molecular simulations, density functional theory, H-bonding propensity analysis, full Interaction map) based computational tools for design and derisking of commercial solid form 

• Develop and apply physics/ML-AI based computational tools to investigate and understand the particle properties, surface and performance

• Participate on multidisciplinary project teams and collaborate with colleagues to define and recommend follow up screening and characterization strategies to complement computational studies according to project timelines. 

• Oversee the work of external partners conducting computational analyses and provide tactical guidance and critical analysis of their work

•  Solve scientific problems using contemporary solid state computational techniques.

• Lead the development of new scientific approaches and knowledge within the Material Sciences organization. This is an individual contributor role.

Qualifications  

Must-Have 

• Candidate to have a PhD in Computational Chemistry, Physics, Materials Science or Engineering, or a closely-related discipline; OR a Master’s degree in these disciplines with 5-10 years of relevant experience in industry or academia. This is an individual contributor role.

• Strong coding skills in a scientific programming language (such as C/C++, Python, Perl) with demonstrated evidence of coding expertise and data analysis.

• Competency in UNIX/Linux and HPC environments for submission and monitoring of jobs.

Nice-to-Have 

• Experience with computational chemistry software (GROMACS, Gaussian, GAMESS-US, cp2k, quantum espresso and VASP) and the CCDC tools preferred.

• Knowledgeable of fundamental physical chemistry and materials science concepts such as thermodynamics, solvation, crystallography, symmetry, nucleat