Research Associate in Astrophysics and Cosmology

Job Summary

Job Description

Research Associate in Astrophysics and Cosmology

Job reference: SAE-020976

Location: Oxford Road, Manchester

Salary: £34,308 to £42,155 per annum depending on relevant experience

Employment type: Fixed Term

Hours Per Week: Full time

Contract Duration: From 1 April 2023 until 31 March 2026

The post-holder will work with Prof Keith Grainge, Dr Laura Wolz and Prof Clive Dickinson, primarily on HI Intensity Mapping with data from MeerKAT. Applying the techniques developed in this project to data from other telescopes and preparing for future surveys with the SKA will also be important aspects of this role.

The post-holder will work on data reduction, data processing methodology, data inference methods, and mock data simulations in the context of HI Intensity Mapping. They will have access to SKA pathfinder data from South African array MeerKAT, working with an international team of experts. Several hundreds of hours of observations have already been made and preliminary results have spurred a recent application for a further 2,500 hours of MeerKAT time for a wide area survey. This post is envisaged to work on both the “on-the-fly” interferometric visibilities as well as the autocorrelation measurements, with the aim of transferring calibrations and flag tables between these data sets in order to produce a joint optimised data reduction pipeline for both. There will be opportunities for the post-holder to be heavily involved in the scientific exploitation of the MeerKAT data, working on the cosmological implications of the HI measurements and on the high angular resolution wide-field survey map. The MeerKAT observations are one of the world’s current leading experiments to make HI Intensity Mapping measurements and they are a direct pathfinder for one of the SKA’s high priority science objectives. The wide-field survey maps will provide a unique resource to the community by giving a high angular resolution, high sensitivity map of the extragalactic southern sky between 580 and 1015 MHz.

The successful applicant will be familiar with radio interferometry data reduction and have a background in either cosmology or radio surveys. Familiarity with HI Intensity Mapping and single-dish measurements (simulations or data analysis).

The School/Department is strongly committed to promoting equality and diversity, including the Athena SWAN charter for gender equality in higher education. The School/Department holds a Silver Award which recognises their good practice in relation to gender; including flexible working arrangements, family-friendly policies, and support to allow staff achieve a good work-life balance. We particularly welcome applications from women for this post. All appointment will be made on merit. For further information, please visit: http://www.physics.manchester.ac.uk/about-us/equality-and-diversity/

Our University is positive about flexible working – you can find out more here

Blended working arrangements may be considered.

Please note that we are unable to respond to enquiries, accept CVs or applications from Recruitment Agencies.

Enquiries about the vacancy, shortlisting and interviews:

Name: Prof Keith Grainge

Email: [email protected]

General enquiries:

Email: [email protected]

Technical support:

https://jobseekersupport.jobtrain.co.uk/support/home

This vacancy will close for applications at midnight on the 8 February 2023.

Please see the link below for the Further Particulars document which contains the person specification criteria.