Job description

Job summary

Applications are invited for a 3-year Research Associate position at the ICIC (Imperial Centre for Inference and Cosmology) within the Astrophysics group in the Department of Physics at Imperial College London. We are seeking candidates with expertise in Bayesian hierarchical modelling of cosmic structure, with a view to developing and applying methods to data including from ESA’s Euclid telescope and/or the Rubin Observatory’s LSST.

Duties and responsibilities

The Astrophysics group hosts the ICIC, an internationally recognised centre for astrostatistics, with emphasis on Bayesian analysis of large-scale astronomical surveys and cosmology.  In addition, it has a strong programme in solar and stellar physics, exoplanet physics, protoplanetary disc physics, including observations, numerical simulations and theory. The group has connections with cosmologists in the Theoretical Physics group at Imperial, and with Statistics in the Mathematics Department.

This position is supported by the group’s STFC Consolidated Grant, and led by Alan Heavens, Andrew Jaffe and Daniel Mortlock. You will be expected to help produce independent and original research within the Astrophysics group, submit publications to refereed journals and support the activities of the research group. You will have the freedom to develop your own research program alongside other members of the cosmology group and have access to Imperial's significant HPC resources.

You will join a vibrant, broad and growing astrostatistics and cosmology research group at Imperial with opportunities to collaborate not only with members of the Astrophysics group but also with other researchers in Physics and Mathematics.

Funding is available for travel, visitors and computing in line with STFC funded projects.

Essential requirements

You must hold a PhD (or equivalent) in Astronomy, Physics, or Mathematics, or exceptionally with other relevant expertise.

You must also be able to demonstrate the following essential criteria:

• Relevant research experience in cosmology, Bayesian inference and computational statistics
• Experience in giving talks at internationally recognised conferences and workshops
• Experience in programming, modifying and testing numerical software
• Experience in carrying out research of high quality, independently and in a team, evidenced by a portfolio of high quality research publications.

In addition, knowledge and experience in the following areas would be desirable:

• Relevant research experience in numerical simulation
• Relevant research experience in weak lensing and/or galaxy clustering
• Sampling in very high-dimensional spaces

Further information

This is a full time up to three-year position available immediately.

*Candidates who have not yet been officially awarded their PhD will be appointed as Research Assistant within the salary range £38,194 - £41,388 per annum.

More information about the Department of Physics and the Astrophysics Group can be found on our webpages.

The Department of Physics is an IoP JUNO Practitioner and an Athena Silver SWAN Award winner reflecting our commitment to building a supportive, inclusive and highly motivated community.  See our EDI webpage for more Information. We strongly encourage applications from all backgrounds, especially those historically underrepresented in Physics.

Further details about the position are available from Professor Alan Heavens a.heavens@imperial.ac.uk

Should you have any queries about the application process please contact Louise Hayward, Section Administrator, (l.hayward@imperial.ac.uk)

The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/

The College believes that the use of animals in research is vital to improve human and animal health and welfare. Animals may only be used in research programmes where their use is shown to be necessary for developing new treatments and making medical advances. Imperial is committed to ensuring that, in cases where this research is deemed essential, all animals in the College’s care are treated with full respect, and that all staff involved with this work show due consideration at every level.

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-integrity/animal-research/ 

We are committed to equality of opportunity, to eliminating discrimination and to creating an inclusive working environment for all. We therefore encourage candidates to apply irrespective of age, disability, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion and belief, gender identity, sex, or sexual orientation. We are an Athena SWAN Silver Award winner, a Disability Confident Leader and a Stonewall Diversity Champion.

Documents

• Job Description - NAT01309.pdf