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Gaia-related postdoctoral position at ARI/ZAH Heidelberg

ARI/ZAH has a vacancy for a two- to three-year post-doctoral position to do Gaia-related research and to contribute to the Gaia mission preparation. The position starts in early/mid 2012; the precise time can be negotiated.

The applicant should have a PhD in astronomy, astrophysics or related field. He/she is expected to do research on scientific topics which are expected to benefit from Gaia data and are related to the existing research groups at ARI/ZAH. The applicant is expected to already have some research experience and publications on the chosen research field. Information on the structure and research areas of ARI/ZAH can be found on the institute's web pages via www.ari.uni-heidelberg.de

In addition, the applicant is supposed to be ready to contribute to the ongoing Gaia mission preparations. Prior knowledge of the Gaia mission and knowledge of the Java programming language and Eclipse development tool are highly beneficial. Some experience with data processing would also be beneficial.

Gaia is an ESA mission due for launch in 2013 which will undertake an astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic survey of the Milky Way. The Gaia group at ARI/ZAH leads the international subconsortium responsible for the ``core processing'', i.e. the parts of the data reductions going from the raw telemetry data all the way to the global astrometric solution. It also leads the entire Gaia consortium's Project Office. The present activities of the Gaia group at ARI include the preparation of the "First Look" into the telemetry data (for a permanent in-depth check of the data quality), the preparation of the global astrometric adjustment, consortium-wide project management support, consortium-wide operations planning, the creation of the Gaia ecliptic-poles catalogue (for quick initial calibration), preparation of ground-based optical tracking of the Gaia satellite (for orbit determination), and the preparation of the Gaia results archive.

Candidates should send a curriculum vitae, publication list, and a brief statement of research interest by 31 March 2012 and arrange for three letters of reference to be sent separately by the same date. The deadline may possibly be extended by a few weeks if only few applications should have been received by then. CV, publication list, and research statement must be concatenated into a single PDF file. Application and letters of reference must be sent by email to gaia-applications@ari.uni-heidelberg.de, under the subject line of "postdoc application". Contact persons for further information are Dr. Ulrich Bastian and Dr. Michael Biermann.

Heidelberg University - to which ARI/ZAH belongs - is an equal-opportunity employer. Women and disabled persons are especially encouraged to apply. The university supports its employees in their search for suitable child care.