List of upcoming opportunities at NOIRLab

Below are current and potential future opportunities at NSF's NOIRLab for students. Please note, some positions are only potential opportunities and are currently unfunded - these are clearly marked. Please contact the named person by email for more information. Currently, open opportunities have a link to the full job description and application link. (emails: firstname.lastname@noirlab.edu)

Open Internship positions

Communications Intern

Location: CEE (Tucson, Az)
Expected dates: Anytime
Announcement

The Communications, Education and Engagement (CEE) team is looking for interns eager to gain experience in science communication about frontline astronomy projects. The internship (a temporary full-time staff position of 3 months renewable to 6 months) will provide a full view of media relations and communications with various audiences, including staff, scientific users, and the general public. 

Astronomy Education/Communication Intern 

Location: CEE (Hilo, HI)
Expected dates: Anytime
Announcement

NSF’s NOIRLab is seeking an Astronomy Education/ Communications Intern who is interested in gaining experience in science communications and/or STEM education related to modern astronomy, specifically in the area of Multi-Messenger and Time-Domain Astronomy (MMA and TDA respectively). This position is being offered as a remote position (during COVID) and is funded by an NSF grant for the Gemini Observatory called Gemini in the Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy (GEMMA). GEMMA. This intern will work on a specific project or projects and mentor (remotely) with NOIRLab staff in creating materials for K-12 education, public outreach and/or communications in MMA and TDA. This 6-month, full-time internship is each intended to provide experiences that will enhance the successful candidate’s future career in science education and/or communications, especially in a modern astronomical or related research environment.

Discovering Brown Dwarfs via the Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors Citizen Science Project

Supervisor: Aaron Meisner
Location: CSDC (Tucson, AZ)
Expected dates: roughly 5/15/2023-8/15/2023
Announcement

Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors is a NOIRLab-led citizen science project crowdsourcing the search for brown dwarfs, cold objects intermediate between the smallest stars and largest planets. The intern will work with Dr. Aaron Meisner at NOIRLab to mine the Cool Neighbors dataset and associated images/catalogs from NASA's WISE telescope, to discover extreme brown dwarfs near the Sun.

Upcoming Internship positions

Understanding Tension in the Hubble Constant with Type Ia Supernovae

Supervisor: David Jones
Location: Gemini Observatory (Hilo, HI)
Expected dates: roughly 5/15/2023-8/15/2023
Announcement: upcoming

Unique approaches to analyzing Type Ia supernova data will be a key ingredient in understanding the 70% of the universe comprised of dark energy and whether new physics are required to explain current measurements of the Hubble constant. The intern will work with David Jones on one of several potential projects, with the goal of understanding how Type Ia supernova properties are affected by their host galaxy environments and the resulting implications for cosmology. Please reach out to david.jones@noirlab.edu for more information.

Upcoming postdoc positions

HST Archival Research program

Supervisor: Monika Soraisam
Location: Gemini Observatory (Hilo, HI)
Expected start date: roughly 4/15/2023-8/15/2023
Announcement: upcoming

The successful candidate will execute an ambitious project studying stellar variables in Andromeda using HST data, leveraging the latter's capabilities to probe faint and crowded sources beyond the reach of ground-based surveys. In particular, they will build a difference imaging pipeline to mine the HST data and perform scientific analyses. The project has a large data science component, whereby the postdoc will use machine learning tools for classification of the variable sources detected by the new pipeline.

Closed Internship positions

Developing pycube: an open source package to handle and analyze IFU data

Supervisors: Emanuele Paolo Farina and Brian C. Lemaux
Location: Gemini-North (Hilo, Hawai'i)

NSF’s NOIRLab has an immediate opening for a Science Intern to work under the supervision of Ema Farina and Brian Lemaux on the completion of the python package Pycube aimed at handling and analyzing integral-field spectroscopic (IFS) data cubes coming from various instruments. The development version of the package already supports VLT/MUSE, and the intern will work on the additional integration of the JWST/NIRSpec and GEMINI/GNIRS instruments. In addition, the intern will take part of the diverse and vibrant research environment of the GEMINI observatory to pursue original research on the properties of Ly-Alpha halos surrounding high redshift quasars observed with VLT/MUSE.