Postdoctoral position in Time-Domain Astronomy Research & Education

The GROWTH project is looking for a postdoctoral fellow with research background in time-domain astronomy and passion for astronomy education and outreach.  The position is for 2 years based at Caltech in Pasadena, CA or at any other GROWTH partner institution in the USA (University of Maryland; University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Texas Tech University; San Diego State University).

GROWTH is an NSF-funded, 5-year program that brings together 14 institutions from 8 countries that operate a global network of 18 observatories to conduct multi-wavelength follow-up observations of transient astronomical events. Scientific research within GROWTH focuses on three main science cases - young supernovae, electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves and near-earth asteroids.

In addition to our scientific goals, GROWTH has a strong educational program that includes:

• summer abroad research program for undergraduates at partner institutions
• exchange program for graduate students and postdocs at partner institutions
• sharing of educational materials used in time-domain astronomy classes given at partner institutions for the purposes of developing novel hands-on modules that can be offered to the wider community of astronomy educators.
• annual summer/winter school.

The candidate is expected to dedicate 50% of their time to research, with the other 50%  spent on leading the:

• Organization of our first winter school to be held sometime in early Dec 2018. The broad goal of the school will be to offer participating students an introduction and  hands-on experience in multi-wavelength observational techniques for follow up of a variety of transient phenomena. The curriculum will be hands-on data-driven discovery modules offered as lectures and ipython jupyter notebooks that the students will work through step-by-step.  The candidate will coordinate with partners across the collaboration to gather materials for the school  as well as develop new modules as necessary.
• Development of new educational modules for broad training of undergraduate and graduate level students. These modules should be based on teaching techniques, projects and exercise materials from already existing classes that are taught at the GROWTH partner institutions. Final products will be shared via our website and other educational platforms such as NASA Wavelength.

Interested candidates should submit the following materials to [email protected]:

• Curriculum Vitae
• Research Statement
• Education Statement
• 3 Recommendation letters

Deadline for applications is January 15, 2018.
For questions about the position, please contact Mansi Kasliwal at [email protected]