Date Posted: 09/19/2025
Req ID: 45193
Faculty/Division: Faculty of Arts & Science
Department: Dept of Chemistry
Campus: St. George (Downtown Toronto)
Position Number: 00058132
Description:
About us:
The Faculty of Arts & Science is the heart of Canada’s leading university and one of the most comprehensive and diverse academic divisions in the world. The strength of Arts & Science derives from our combined teaching and research excellence in the humanities, sciences and social sciences across 29 departments, seven colleges and 46 interdisciplinary centres, institutes and programs.
We can only realize our mission with the dedication and excellence of engaged staff and faculty. The diversity of opportunities and perspectives within the Faculty reflect the local and global landscape and the need for curiosity, innovative thinking and collaboration. At Arts & Science, we take pride in our legacy of innovation and discovery that has changed the way we think about the world.
Established in 1859, the University of Toronto’s Department of Chemistry is one of the leading and recognized institutions in Canada. We take pride in our teaching excellence, advanced research facilities, and development of distinguished scientists in the past and for the future. Our department has a wide variety of services including chemical stores, NMR lab, X-Ray analysis lab, and a Mass Spectrometry lab. These resources, combined with our ambition and excitement, create an ideal place to work, research, and make an impact in scientific education.
Your opportunity:
The CSICOMP NMR Facility houses 10 NMR spectrometers, 1 EPR spectrometer, and a variety of peripheral equipment for molecular characterization at the University of Toronto. These spectrometers serve a robust academic and industrial client base with diverse scientific needs.
The successful proponent for this position will work under the general supervision of the Analytical Facility Manager, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). The proponent will be primarily responsible for providing technical support and maintenance functions for the NMR facility. These supports include instrument and laboratory equipment maintenance, upgrades, advanced troubleshooting, training, NMR acquisition, data processing, and data analysis. Specifically, the NMR Instrument Technician will be responsible for:
• maintaining facility hardware and software, including
o spectrometers, workstations, hardware accessories, and facility infrastructure
• troubleshooting and repairing instrument hardware, software, and peripherals
•implementing software and hardware upgrades
• assisting with cryogen fills
• assisting with client training
• record-keeping
The Instrument technician will also assist with CSICOMP NMR Facility client services byconducting NMR and EPR experiments while adjusting protocols where appropriate to obtain successful analyses. The NMR Instrument Technician will maintain on-line facility records such as instrument maintenance logs, troubleshooting notes, sample acquisition logs, and website content, while adhering to quality control procedures to ensure a safe working environment.
The successful candidate will handle and work with chemicals, cryogenics, and work in the presence of strong magnetic and RF fields.As such, the position requires awareness of and compliance with all health and safety practices during the normal course of work. In addition, s/he must immediately report equipment malfunctions, unusual occurrences and potentially hazardous situations to the appropriate supervisor.
Your responsibilities will include:
- Performing lab experiments that requires great precision and attention to many details
- Providing detailed explanations and demonstrating procedures to students and/or employees on lab techniques, experimental procedures and protocols
- Collecting experimental data, verifying results and passing on findings
- Preparing draft statistical reports and summaries from data collected and updating and maintaining records
- Coordinating routine maintenance of lab equipment
- Troubleshooting routine equipment repairs and issues with lab equipment and/or workstations
- Ordering supplies within established limits
- Serving as a technical resource on laboratory protocols, and experimental procedures and equipment
Essential Qualifications:
- Bachelor's Degree in Analytical Chemistry or acceptable combination of equivalent experience and education.
- Minimum three (3) years of recent and related experience in a chemistry teaching or research lab, providing instrument and laboratory maintenance, advanced instrument troubleshooting, instrument training, data acquisition, data processing, and analysis.
- Experience operating, maintaining, troubleshooting, and repairing modern scientific instrumentation, including analytical instrumentation, computer workstations, peripheral laboratory hardware and wet laboratory equipment.
- Experience conducting hardware installation and repair
- Experience conducting software installation and testing for Windows, Linux, MS Office, electronic lab notebook applications and applications that control scientific instrumentation, including networking, writing and implementing software scripts and macros
- Experience utilizing troubleshooting hardware to diagnose scientific instrumentation issues, including: multimeters, frequency analyzers, oscilloscopes, and soldering equipment
- Experience conducting routine NMR and EPR experiments
- Experience conducting training sessions on the use of scientific instrumentation
- Experience with standard health and safety guidelines
- Experience maintaining general orderliness in a laboratory environment
- Excellent lab equipment maintenance and troubleshooting skills
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Excellent interpersonal skills
- Excellent problem solving and analytical skills
- An ability to maintain instrument operation by prioritizing maintenance duties and managing time efficiently. the ability to work independently and effectively while under pressure to meet strict deadlines.
- An ability to work as part of a team. Must have initiative, sound judgement, diplomacy and discretion.
- The ability to lift, carry, push, pull or hold more than 10 kg and up to 25 kg.
Assets (Nonessential):
- Specific knowledge and understanding of the theory and principles of NMR spectroscopy as they pertain to chemical analysis.
- Experience using NMR and EPR vendor software (e.g. mNova, VnmrJ, Topspin, Xenon)
- Demonstrated experience conducting: advanced 1D, 2D, and 3D solution-state NMR experiments for a broad range of NMR-active nuclei solid-state NMR experiments variable temperature NMR and EPR experiments
- Demonstrated experience maintaining, troubleshooting, and repairing NMR, EPR spectrometers, and related accessories
- Experience conducting NMR training
- An advanced degree (MSc or PhD) in Chemistry, Engineering, or Physics is preferred
To be successful in this roleyou will be:
- Accountable
- Approachable
- Communicator
- Diplomatic
- Multi-tasker
- Resourceful
Closing Date: 10/10/2025, 11:59PM ET
Employee Group: USW
Appointment Type: Budget - Continuing
Schedule: Full-Time
Pay Scale Group & Hiring Zone:
Job Category: Engineering / Technical
Recruiter: Ann Yang
Lived Experience Statement
Candidates who are members of Indigenous, Black, racialized and 2SLGBTQ+ communities, persons with disabilities, and other equity deserving groups are encouraged to apply, and their lived experience shall be taken into consideration as applicable to the posted position.
