2020 JWST Postdoctoral Fellowship

Submission Information
Publish Date: 
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Archive Date: 
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Job Summary
Job Category: 
Post-doctoral Positions and Fellowships
Institution Classification/Type: 
Foreign
Institution/Company: 
Saint Mary's University / NRC-Herzberg
City: 
Halifax / Victoria
State/Province: 
NS / BC
Country: 
Canada
Announcement
Job Announcement Text: 

We invite applications for a postdoctoral position as part of the the 200-hour Guaranteed Time Observer (GTO) program of the JWST NIRISS Instrument Science Team.

The JWST Near-IR Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) provides R~150 slitless grism spectroscopy over 1 to 2.5 microns for every object in a 2.2x2.2 sq arcmin field of view. Soon after JWST launch in 2021 our NIRISS team will devote 200 hours of guaranteed observing time to the CANUCS program, whose primary component is NIRISS spatially-resolved spectroscopy of thousands of galaxies in five fields lensed by massive intermediate-redshift galaxy 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 datasets 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 here: http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-public/1208.pdf

The postdoctoral fellow will contribute to the development of a comprehensive data simulation and reduction pipeline and will be subsequently involved in the scientific analysis of these exceptional JWST data. The fellow will have significant scope for defining and leading scientific investigations within this program. The fellow will also have time for independent research and will be able to apply for Canadian time on ALMA, CFHT, Gemini, Astrosat, and JWST.

The fellow will be located at NRC-Herzberg in Victoria, Canada, and will work closely with Dr Chris Willott within the broader CANUCS collaboration. The appointment is expected to start in or around September 2020 and will be for three years, subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funding. Experience with the analysis of optical/IR extragalactic data is essential, while experience with IR spectroscopy and/or data pipeline development will be considered an asset. The application should ideally indicate the scientific investigation(s) that the applicant would be interested in performing using the JWST GTO dataset.

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

The review of applications will begin on 18 December 2019. All application material should be sent electronically to [email protected] and addressed to Drs. Marcin Sawicki and Chris Willott. Applicants should submit a CV, a statement of research interests and accomplishments, and arrange for three letters of reference to be sent separately, also to the above address.

Application Deadline: 
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Current Status of Position: 
Accepting Applicants
Apply to Job
Attention To: 
Marcin Sawicki & Chris Willott
Inquiries About Job
Attention To: 
Marcin Sawicki
Subject: 
JWST GTO postdoctoral position inquiry