Staff Careers

The Postdoctoral Research Assistant III will undertake research in the general field of low-temperature plasma (LTP) physics in the context of solar and space physics. The incumbent will be responsible for managing the Space Weather Summer Camp. This will include recruiting student participants at UAH and throughout AL, planning the program in coordination with CSPAR staff and our German and South African partners, developing the program of projects and the mentors for each project, supervising and mentoring the student participants both at UAH and at the international camp locations. Must be capable of traveling internationally.

Duties/Responsibilities
• Perform research and provide support and assist the PI in developing and applying transport models that describe charged particle propagation and diffusion in the presence of turbulent magnetic fields, and relating these models to spacecraft observations.
• Manage Annual Space Weather Summer Camp, and recruit student participants from UAH and throughout Alabama.
• Plan the program in coordination with CSPAR staff, and our German and South African partners, develop the program of projects and the mentors for each project.
• Supervise, mentor and provide guidance and direction to the student participants both at UAH and at the international camp locations.
• Travel internationally and accompany the student participants on their travel, and stay at the international partner locations.
• Research assess and incorporate turbulence transport models into shock wave physics problems and investigating the nature of energetic particle scattering in turbulence in a complex plasma such as occurs in the solar wind and solar corona.
• Collaborate with other members of the NSF EPSCoR CPU2AL project, including members on other campuses.
• Perform testing and evaluation on theoretical models against observations of turbulence and charged particle propagation made by Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter and related experiments.

• Ph.D. in Plasma Physics or a similar field of study.
• 2 - 2.5 years of full-time verifiable work experience.
• Ability to solve relevant transport equations numerically.
• Knowledge of particle transport, scattering, and turbulence in a space physics context.

• Experience managing an international summer program for undergraduate and graduate students is preferred
• Experience solving transport equations and applying turbulence models to determine relevant kinetic transport coefficients is desired

$52,216 - $55,000