Galaxy evolution with large JWST and ground-based surveys

Submission Information
Publish Date: 
Monday, December 2, 2019
Archive Date: 
Monday, January 6, 2020
Job Summary
Job Category: 
Post-doctoral Positions and Fellowships
Institution Classification/Type: 
Foreign
Institution/Company: 
Saint Mary's University
Department Name: 
Department of Astronomy & Physics
City: 
Halifax
State/Province: 
Nova Scotia
Country: 
Canada
Announcement
Job Announcement Text: 

Galaxy evolution with large JWST and ground-based surveys

We invite applications for a postdoctoral fellow interested in observational studies of galaxy evolution to join our team preparing for JWST Guaranteed Time Observer (GTO) data and working on wide-and-deep ground-based imaging surveys.

The fellow will contribute towards preparing for and then the scientific exploitation of our 200-hour JWST Guaranteed Time Observer (GTO) program that - within the first year of JWST science operations - will use JWST’s NIRISS slitless spectrograph to carry out an imaging and spatially-resolved low-resolution grism survey of ~10,000 galaxies behind five massive z~0.5 clusters. This will produce maps of key physical quantities such as stellar populations, ionized gas, metallicity, dust, etc. This slitless spectroscopy program will be supported by extensive imaging and multi-slit follow-up spectroscopy with JWST’s NIRCam and NIRSpec instruments. Simultaneously to the NIRISS observations, we will also observe with NIRCam using 14 medium-band filters in five parallel, offset fields. The science possible with these data will range from studies of galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization, to those at the peak of cosmic star formation at z~1-3, to investigating galaxy populations in the massive z~0.5 clusters.  For more information on the program, see: http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-public/1208.pdf

The fellow will also be invited to participate in the exploitation of our existing deep-and-wide (~20 sq deg to ~27 mag) Ugrizy imaging from the CLAUDS + HyperSuprimeCam (HSC) program (Sawicki et al. 2019 MNRAS 489, 5202), soon to be joined by Spitzer IRAC imaging now also in hand. This unparalleled wide-and-deep dataset will provide opportunities to study the evolution of galaxies with masses down to 10^8.5 Msun across cosmic time and as a function of environment.   

The fellow will be located at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, a major centre on the Atlantic coast of Canada, that’s rich in culture and close to nature. They will work within Dr Marcin Sawicki’s research group, which will consist of 3 postdoctoral fellows and several graduate students embedded within the astronomy research ecosystem in the Department and the Institute for Computational Astrophysics and connected to the broader JWST NIRISS GTO and CLAUDS+HSC teams. The fellow will have time for independent research and will be eligible to apply for Canadian observing time on Gemini, CFHT, ALMA, and JWST, and for major computing resources through Compute Canada.

The appointment is expected to start in September 2020 and is expected to be for up three years, subject to performance and availability of funds.

We appreciate and welcome diversity, and hire on the basis of merit. We encourage applications from qualified women, visible minorities, Aboriginal people, and people with disabilities, and are committed to the principles of employment equity.

Applicants should submit a CV, a statement of research interests and accomplishments, and arrange for three letters of reference to be sent separately.  All application material should be submitted electronically, by 6 January 2020, to [email protected] and addressed to Dr. Marcin Sawicki.

Application Deadline: 
Monday, January 6, 2020
Selection Deadline: 
Saturday, February 1, 2020
Current Status of Position: 
Accepting Applicants
Apply to Job
Attention To: 
Marcin Sawicki
Title: 
Professor
Inquiries About Job
Attention To: 
Marcin Sawicki
Subject: 
Extragalactic position