Internship – Exploring Modern Formats, Dataflows and AI in Nuclear Structure and Decay Data

Duration

6 months

Internships

The IAEA accepts a limited number of interns each year. The internships are awarded to persons studying towards a university degree or who have recently received a degree (see Internship web pages for further details).

The purpose of the programme is:

• To provide interns with the opportunity to gain practical work experience in line with their studies or interests, and expose them to the work of the IAEA and the United Nations as a whole;
• To benefit the IAEA's programmes through the assistance of qualified students specialized in various professional fields.

The duration of an internship is normally not less than three months and not more than one year.

Organizational Setting

The Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications (NA) implements the IAEA's Major Programme 2, "Nuclear Techniques for Development and Environmental Protection". This Major Programme comprises individual programmes on food and agriculture, human health, water resources, environment and radiation technologies. These programmes are supported by laboratories in Seibersdorf, Monaco and Vienna. The Major Programme's objective is to enhance the capacity of Member States to meet basic human needs and to assess and manage the marine and terrestrial environments through the use of nuclear and isotopic techniques in sustainable development programmes.
The Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences is responsible for assisting and advising Member States in research and development for the nuclear sciences, especially the physical and chemical sciences. Specifically, the Division provides support to Member States in the following fields: production of radioisotopes and radiolabelled products for applications in health care and industry; radiation source applications; research reactor utilization; applications of accelerators and nuclear instrumentation; nuclear and atomic data for applications; controlled nuclear fusion and isotope hydrology and geochemistry.
Additionally, the nuclear science activities carried out by the Nuclear Data Section and Physics Section in the Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences of the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications fall under Major Programme 1.
The Nuclear Data Section (NDS) is primarily responsible for the generation and maintenance of a number of high-quality and fundamental nuclear and atomic databases and providing services to users worldwide. The main means of dissemination is via the NDS website, which provides interactive tools to present the required data.

Main Purpose

The main purpose of the internship is to prototype modern methods and software tools for the nuclear data development with emphasis on integrating AI methods.
During the duration of the internship with the Nuclear Data Section, the intern will explore methods of automating data pipelines for management of nuclear data, implementation of modern formats and enhanced metadata using AI methods, and development of data APIs for dissemination. The intern will also become acquainted with general principles of:

• Nuclear data as a foundation to pure and applied nuclear science and engineering
• Data development and processing tools related to nuclear structure and decay data
• Databases, retrieval interfaces and data APIs for dissemination of nuclear data

Functions / Key Results Expected

Depending on progress, interest and priorities, a selection of the following:

• Supporting in the creation of prototypes for converting between legacy formats and modern formats
• Assist in developing prototypes to support automated updates of nuclear structure and decay databases
• Assist in developing prototypes to support linking nuclear structure and decay data across different IAEA data applications using modern formats, enhanced metadata and data workflows

Qualifications and Experience

• University degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Physical Sciences, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Experience in the application of Python to solve problems involving or related to scientific data.
• Excellent programming skills in Python
• Basic knowledge of statistics and machine learning techniques.
• A good foundation in linear algebra and numerical optimization is an asset.
• Experience with databases with scientific data is an asset.
• Good communication and teamwork skills; capable of working independently and proactively.

Applicant Eligibility

• Candidates must be a minimum of 20 years of age and have completed at least three years of full-time studies at a university or equivalent institution towards the completion of a first degree.
• Candidates may apply up to one year after the completion of a bachelor's, master's or doctorate degree.
• Candidates must not have previously participated in the IAEA's internship programme.
• Good written and spoken English essential; fluency in any other IAEA official language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish or Russian) an asset.
• Candidates must attach two signed letters of recommendation to their application.