What are the responsibilities and job description for the Job Title: Laboratory Operations Specialist, Senior position at Purdue University College of Engineering-Office of Academic Affairs?
Laboratory Operations Specialist, Senior
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Req Id: 41375
Job Title: Laboratory Operations Specialist, Senior
City: West Lafayette
Job Description:
Job Summary
The Instructional Support Engineer works in the Eshop group at Purdue West Lafayette and serves as a consultant, providing direct support to faculty, staff, and students in the school’s formal instructional labs for all undergraduate courses in Mechanical Engineering. This includes more than 9 formal courses in 8 different instructional labs. This position also supports three computer labs used to teach additional courses and ME printer services.
Day-to-day responsibilities include maintenance and repair of instructional lab equipment and ensuring the instructional facilities are ready for each lab session. Equipment consists primarily of custom-designed instrumentation that is not commercially available; as such, this position develops documentation related to specification, design, fabrication, testing, and repair of equipment and develops and trains on these elements. Repair and maintenance involve root cause analysis and complex decision-making related to problems that do not have clear solutions and require new, engineered solutions. Through these responsibilities, the Instructional Support Engineer ensures labs are running at optimal functionality in order to enable successful completion of course projects, objectives, assignments, and outcomes for faculty, staff, and students. This position will also provide strategic guidance in the development of new laboratory experiments and apparatus to further modernize the Schools undergraduate program.
The position will work as a team member providing consultation with the Indianapolis instructional labs for ME with support and upgrades. This position may also be called upon to provide engineering solutions to complex problems that affect the ME curriculum in both West Lafayette and Indianapolis ME spaces. Through these responsibilities, the Instructional Support Engineer ensures labs are running at optimal functionality in order to enable successful completion of course projects, objectives, assignments, and outcomes for faculty, staff, and students.
This position will also manage the access to spaces within the ME and RAIL buildings. This will include the assignment of card access privledges and the assignment/return of physical building keys. This position will create and mantian space use drawings for the ME Building, including field verification of spaces within the building to enable the design and placement of furniture and research equipment.
Additionaly, this position will provide primary support for the Mallot Innovation Center for tools, equipment and student projects needs. This Center is used by many ME classes for projects and requires coordination and planning with faculty, staff, and students every semester.
As required, this position will coordinate with Purdue IT on the support of ME computers, printers, copiers, and other networked or non-networked devices. This includes helping facilitate instructional lab hardware setups, software installs and assisting faculty and staff computer and printer support tickets. The position will manage and order toner supplies and other maintenance parts for printers and copiers.
What You'll Be Doing:
The School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University has a mission to change the world for the better, one student at a time. We began in 1882 as experts in locomotives (thus the name "Boilermakers!") and now in the 21st century, we continue to move the world forward by combining the latest technologies with the strongest of fundamentals.
About 2,600 undergraduate students are part of the Purdue ME family in West Lafayette, Indiana. As one of the broadest engineering disciplines, our students and faculty have the widest variety of interests and expertise. We maintain high standards, whether in the classroom, the laboratory, or the workplace. Purdue ME is one of the top ten schools in the country, as ranked by US News & World Report.
For more information about our department, please visit: https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME
What We're Looking For:
Education and Experience:
Purdue is a community built on collaboration, with global perspectives, Boilermaker pride and endless opportunity to live, learn and grow. Join us and contribute to our culture.
Additional Information:
Compensation Information:
Professional 3
Pay Band S070
Job Code#20003178
Link to Purdue University's Compensation Guidelines: https://www.purdue.edu/hr/mngcareer/compguidelines/index.php
EOE
Purdue University is an EO/EA University
Apply now
Posting Start Date: 3/27/26
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Employee Login
Job Description
Apply now
Req Id: 41375
Job Title: Laboratory Operations Specialist, Senior
City: West Lafayette
Job Description:
Job Summary
The Instructional Support Engineer works in the Eshop group at Purdue West Lafayette and serves as a consultant, providing direct support to faculty, staff, and students in the school’s formal instructional labs for all undergraduate courses in Mechanical Engineering. This includes more than 9 formal courses in 8 different instructional labs. This position also supports three computer labs used to teach additional courses and ME printer services.
Day-to-day responsibilities include maintenance and repair of instructional lab equipment and ensuring the instructional facilities are ready for each lab session. Equipment consists primarily of custom-designed instrumentation that is not commercially available; as such, this position develops documentation related to specification, design, fabrication, testing, and repair of equipment and develops and trains on these elements. Repair and maintenance involve root cause analysis and complex decision-making related to problems that do not have clear solutions and require new, engineered solutions. Through these responsibilities, the Instructional Support Engineer ensures labs are running at optimal functionality in order to enable successful completion of course projects, objectives, assignments, and outcomes for faculty, staff, and students. This position will also provide strategic guidance in the development of new laboratory experiments and apparatus to further modernize the Schools undergraduate program.
The position will work as a team member providing consultation with the Indianapolis instructional labs for ME with support and upgrades. This position may also be called upon to provide engineering solutions to complex problems that affect the ME curriculum in both West Lafayette and Indianapolis ME spaces. Through these responsibilities, the Instructional Support Engineer ensures labs are running at optimal functionality in order to enable successful completion of course projects, objectives, assignments, and outcomes for faculty, staff, and students.
This position will also manage the access to spaces within the ME and RAIL buildings. This will include the assignment of card access privledges and the assignment/return of physical building keys. This position will create and mantian space use drawings for the ME Building, including field verification of spaces within the building to enable the design and placement of furniture and research equipment.
Additionaly, this position will provide primary support for the Mallot Innovation Center for tools, equipment and student projects needs. This Center is used by many ME classes for projects and requires coordination and planning with faculty, staff, and students every semester.
As required, this position will coordinate with Purdue IT on the support of ME computers, printers, copiers, and other networked or non-networked devices. This includes helping facilitate instructional lab hardware setups, software installs and assisting faculty and staff computer and printer support tickets. The position will manage and order toner supplies and other maintenance parts for printers and copiers.
What You'll Be Doing:
- Provide day to day support for the equipment and instructional apparatus used in the Instructional laboratories. Coordinate with faculty and teaching assistants to ensure appropriate instructional apparatus is in place to me course schedules.
- Provide strategic guidance in the development of new laboratory experiments and apparatus to further modernize the school’s undergraduate program. Serve as a point of contact in the Mechanical Engineering formal instructional laboratories for course instructors and course assistants related to functionality of instructional lab apparatus, design of lab curriculum to target desired educational outcomes, and all information related to maintenance/repair of instructional lab equipment and functional lab setup.
- Develop process documentation related to specification, design, fabrication, testing, and repair of equipment. Ensure all equipment is properly calibrated prior to course utilization. Provide instruction to TAs on proper techniques for using systems, tools, and equipment. Collect and analyze data on common problems found in the instructional lab and design and develop proposals to mitigate or eliminate these problems. Perform root cause analysis on all failures of equipment. Engineer solutions and implement as necessary in order to ensure all students can successfully complete lab assignments during scheduled lab periods and do not experience interruptions in curricular goals.
- Independently design, develop, and implement safety policies and procedures related to the specification, design, fabrication, operation, testing, and repair of equipment to ensure the safe operation of each of the formal instructional lab areas. Create and provide training on these procedures for course instructors, teaching assistants, student employees, and students as needed. Make regular updates based on new information/issues that present over time as equipment is adapted to different needs. Serve as a reviewer for safety concerns on course projects conducted in the instructional labs.
- This position will provide primary support and oversight for the or the Mallot Innovation and Prototyping Suite. This includes managing tools, equipment, and specialized facilities to support student projects needs. As a prototyping facility, this position will be required to maintain equipment, track and purchase tooling, and provide oversight of student employees.
- This position will directly manage and train users for the safe use of the paint booth facility installed in the facility. This will include things such as PPE and usage instructions as well as basic troubleshooting to understand when the equipment may not be functioning properly and not protecting the user. This position will coordinate the maintenance, testing, and repairs for this equipment.
- Provide graphic arts services to support the School’s needs for safety, compliance, and renovations. Create and maintain CAD files/scale drawings of school spaces. Field verify drawings where required.
- Provide technical expertise in the layout and configuration of furnishings and equipment to be installed in school spaces. Create new proposed arrangements of furnishings when spaces change use and/or move, ensuring appropriate clearances and aisles are maintained.
- Maintain space assignment maps for the ME Building, RAIL building, and assigned lab spaces in Potter. Maintain furniture layout and desk assignment maps for all graduate office spaces. Create and maintain signage for building navigation and emergency situations.
- Create functional layouts of information for all emergency action signage installed in classrooms and hallways.
- Foster a culture of safety and learning to ensure all users have a positive learning experience while in the instructional labs.
The School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University has a mission to change the world for the better, one student at a time. We began in 1882 as experts in locomotives (thus the name "Boilermakers!") and now in the 21st century, we continue to move the world forward by combining the latest technologies with the strongest of fundamentals.
About 2,600 undergraduate students are part of the Purdue ME family in West Lafayette, Indiana. As one of the broadest engineering disciplines, our students and faculty have the widest variety of interests and expertise. We maintain high standards, whether in the classroom, the laboratory, or the workplace. Purdue ME is one of the top ten schools in the country, as ranked by US News & World Report.
For more information about our department, please visit: https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME
What We're Looking For:
Education and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree in STEM
- Three (3) years of experience
- Programming skills using microcontrollers required
- Background in electronics design, fabrication, and troubleshooting desired
- Experience in making and mechanical assembly desired
- Ability to interact with faculty, staff, and students and convey information critical to safety and process.
- Knowledge of CAD systems and architectural drawings.
- Capability to create and verify scale drawings of a space through field measurements for furniture layout and usage planning.
Purdue is a community built on collaboration, with global perspectives, Boilermaker pride and endless opportunity to live, learn and grow. Join us and contribute to our culture.
Additional Information:
- Purdue’s benefits summary https://www.purdue.edu/hr/Benefits/
- Purdue will not sponsor employment authorization for this position
- A background check will be required for employment in this position
- FLSA: Exempt (Not Eligible For Overtime)
- Retirement Eligibility: Defined Contribution Waiting Period
Compensation Information:
Professional 3
Pay Band S070
Job Code#20003178
Link to Purdue University's Compensation Guidelines: https://www.purdue.edu/hr/mngcareer/compguidelines/index.php
EOE
Purdue University is an EO/EA University
Apply now
Posting Start Date: 3/27/26
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