Job Description
Staff Scientist Caltech
Job Category: Fulltime Regular
Exempt Overtime Eligible: Exempt
Benefits Eligible: Benefit Based
Caltech is a world-renowned science and engineering institute that marshals some of the world's brightest minds and most innovative tools to address fundamental scientific questions. We thrive on finding and cultivating talented people who are passionate about what they do. Join us and be a part of the diverse Caltech community.
Job Summary IPAC, part of the Physics, Math, and Astronomy Division at Caltech, provides science operations, user support, data and archive services, and scientific vision to enhance discovery with observatories both in space and on the ground. IPAC invites applications from highly qualified individuals for a full-time scientist position to work with the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) team.
The mission of NED () is to provide a census of extragalactic objects augmented with data from across the electromagnetic spectrum, for use by the research and lay communities worldwide, with access through computer query protocols and friendly graphical user interfaces. This compilation is continually updated by the fusion of redshifts and fundamental data appearing in refereed publications and major catalogs and by the addition of external links to more data. NED currently provides data for more than 1.1 billion distinct objects joined from over 135,000 references including 18 million redshifts.
IPAC has an immediate opening for a scientist to work with the NED team. The primary responsibility of this position is to contribute to keeping the content of the database current and accurate by assimilating the diverse and rapidly growing data published in the astrophysics literature and associated catalogs. The successful candidate will also help identify new approaches that can be implemented by NED to accelerate data ingest, and help to design, implement, and test those approaches. The scientist will also conduct astronomical research related to NED's mission.
Essential Job Duties - Applying NED's current methods for locating, extracting, transforming, and integrating data into the system
- Working with scientists and engineers on the team to improve existing tools and develop and deploy new tools to accelerate the flow and fusion of data into NED
- Performing scientific validation of NED data gathered through automated methods, including vetting the results of automated cross-matching
- Responding to user support requests related to the scientific content of NED
- Helping to design and validate NED services and interfaces to enable science use cases for NED data
- Conducting research exploiting NED's rich data holdings to make new discoveries
Basic Qualifications If you have the following in your background, then we want to hear about your interest in joining our team:
- PhD in astronomy, physics, or a related field and two years of post-PhD experience.
- Knowledge of astronomical coordinate systems, nomenclature, astrometry, photometry, extragalactic spectral and morphological classifications, and observational techniques.
- Good written and verbal communication skills.
- Demonstrated experience working with astronomical data.
- Computer programming or prototyping expertise.
Preferred Qualifications These are a set of skills and experiences which will add to your ability to contribute to the roles and responsibilities of the position. The following attributes would make you a better fit for this position, but even if these do not describe your experience, we would still like to hear from you:
- Two years or more experience in computer programming.
- Proficiency in Python and a working knowledge of the Astropy library.
- Proficiency manipulating large, diverse and complex data sets.
- Strong skills using large databases.
- Experience or keen interest in applying the skills of a data scientist, such as data wrangling and machine learning, to streamline data processing.
- Peer-reviewed publications in areas of extragalactic astronomy that connect to the NED mission.
Required Documents - Full resume or CV.
- Cover letter.
- List of three professional references.
Complete applications submitted by March 15, 2025, will receive full consideration, but review of applications will continue until a suitable candidate has been identified.
To be considered for this position please visit our web site and apply on line at the following link: We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Copyright 2024 Jobelephant.com Inc. All rights reserved.
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About California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is a world-renowned science and engineering research and education institution, where extraordinary faculty and students seek answers to complex questions, discover new knowledge, lead innovation, and transform our future.
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Job Tags
Full time, Immediate start, Worldwide,