Optical Scientist — Imaging and Biomedical Optics

The role

This role centers on optical architecture and experimental measurement: lens and illumination design, spectroscopy, radiometry, imaging, and the often difficult task of finding a weak optical signal in a biological background.

The work

• Develop optical sensing and imaging architectures using geometric optics, wave optics, and radiometric reasoning.
• Design collection and illumination paths, lenses, apertures, filters, detectors, spectrometers, and compact optical assemblies.
• Model scattering, absorption, background light, and source–detector geometry in biological media; identify the limits of the measurement.
• Use Zemax OpticStudio or comparable software for optical design, tolerancing, and stray-light analysis.
• Estimate photon budgets, detector noise, dynamic range, bandwidth, and achievable sensitivity before committing to hardware.
• Build and align experiments; develop calibration protocols and independent controls to separate target signals from artifacts.
• Work with electronics, software, mechanics, and biological researchers to turn benchtop results into robust measurement systems.

What matters

• Strong knowledge of physical optics, optical instrumentation, and how detectors and sources behave in real systems.
• Experience designing, building, debugging, and quantifying an optical setup; not simulation alone.
• Comfort using a camera, photodiode, spectrometer, laser, or similar laboratory instrument.
• Experience with optical design tools and Python or MATLAB for analysis and acquisition.
• Biomedical optics, spectroscopy, diffuse optics, optical imaging, or fiber-based detection experience is valuable but not mandatory.

What good work looks like

A working optical bench prototype, a defensible photon and noise budget, and repeatable characterization that agrees with the model.

Why this work matters

Establish whether an optical signal is physically measurable, then design and build the instrument that tests it.

Get in touch

Send us your CV, your personal website or examples of work you have done, particularly an optical system you designed or characterized, including what its measurements revealed. Include an informal handwritten statement of purpose, with no prescribed length, telling us why this mission matters to you, what difficult work has taught you, and what you would like to take responsibility for at Walnut. This mission will demand scientific rigor, patience, independent thinking and a willingness to test ideas against reality. Write the statement entirely in your own words, without using generative AI. We will not consider statements written using AI. A photograph or scan of the statement is sufficient, and a typed version is welcome if handwriting is difficult. A reference from someone who knows your work is welcome, but not required.