Bellarmine University, located in Louisville, KY is participating in the Rubin Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) project as part of the Kentucky Association for Research with LSST (KARL), a consortium of eight universities in Kentucky. KARL is a LSSTC member institution. There is an annual AAS Regional meeting of astronomers/physicists in Kentucky and surrounding states, and an online summer senior/graduate-level seminar series between the KARL institutions. Faculty members of the Bellarmine Astrophysics group are part of the Rubin-LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) and have been contributing to DESC’s Phosim (Photon Simulator) project. Bellarmine University’s HPC cluster generated the DESC PhoSim Rubin Survey# 1 data that is available in the public domain. The Bellarmine Astrophysics group has state-of-the art facilities for research, a 384 core HPC cluster with 200TB disk storage space that is being used as a Rubin-DESC computing resource, 9 high end NVIDIA triple-monitor for data analysis and a 16 ft x 5 ft Hiperwall display system in the Advanced Visualization and Computational Lab (AVCL) for visualization.
Bellarmine University is seeking a highly-motivated Postdoctoral Research Associate with a computational/observational research background in Cosmology or Astronomy or Astrophysics, to work for LSST-DESC focusing on exploration of dark energy, specifically on the development and testing of algorithms and software needed to pursue precise and accurate cosmological studies using weak lensing at the pixel level, quantitative assessment of potential biases in photometric redshift/cosmic shear estimators, and the development of solutions to meet the requirements for tomographic cosmic shear analyses. The Postdoctoral Research Associate will be able to collaborate with others who are involved with the exploration of dark energy at Rubin-LSST. The Postdoctoral Research Associate is also expected to contribute to PhoSim project, such as code debugging and running the PhoSim jobs on the Bellarmine HPC cluster using Condor.
The position is available as early as November 1, 2021 and will remain open until filled. Competitive benefits including health insurance offered.
Type of Appointment/Position: Full-Time 3-Year Postdoctoral Research Associate. Position can be renewed annually based on the job performance by the postdoc’s supervisor.
Requirements:
Candidates must have a Ph.D. in Astronomy or Astrophysics or Cosmology or Physics by the starting date of the appointment.
Candidates must have strong computational abilities and coding skills and experience. Work experience in Python, Jupyter notebook, SQL and code development in HPC Linux Condor environment is desirable. Data analysis experience in the context of cosmology/astrophysics/astronomy is required. Prior research experience in galaxy clusters, weak lensing and/or analysis of photometric datasets is an asset. Familiarity with the Rubin Science Platform (RSP), Rubin-LSST pipeline design and development, and knowledge of machine learning techniques is a plus.
Application Instructions:
Interested applicants should submit a letter of interest, CV, and statement of research background and past research experience using the link below:
Applicants should arrange for three letters of recommendation to be submitted by the references directly to Professor Akhtar Mahmood at amahmood@bellarmine.edu. One of the three letters must be from the candidate’s Ph.D. thesis advisor. All inquiries about the position should be directed to Professor Akhtar Mahmood amahmood@bellarmine.edu.