Joint PhD Position in Exoplanetary Sciences at University of Grenoble Alpes and University of Geneva
Joint PhD Position in Exoplanetary Sciences at University of Grenoble Alpes and University of Geneva
One 3-year PhD position is currently available at Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics of Grenoble (IPAG) at the University of Grenoble Alpes
and at the Department of Astronomy of Geneva University. The position starts September 1st, 2019 for 18 months at IPAG in Grenoble,
followed by 18 months at Geneva Observatory. The successful applicant will manage observing programs to search for exoplanets around low-mass stars.
============================================================
PhD Position : Searching for exo-earths in the habitable zones of M dwarfs with NIRPS and ExTrA
Applications are invited for a joint PhD position at the Grenoble-Alpes and Geneva universities working with Dr. Xavier Bonfils and Prof. François Bouchy to find more habitable-zone transiting exo-Earths amenable to characterization. The project rests on two strategic instruments with infrared sensitivity. This is expected to boost the efficiency of planet search around cool low-mass stars, which emits most of their light at infrared wavelengths. Both instruments are NIRPS, an infrared Doppler spectrograph that will work in tandem with the visible spectrograph HARPS on 3.6-m ESO telescope, and ExTrA, an array of three 60-cm telescopes capable of infrared photometry and also located in La Silla, Chile. It will also work in synergy with TESS, a NASA mission poised to detect thousands new transiting planets around bright stars.
The successful applicant will contribute to this ambitious planet search by managing observations, analysing the data being collected and interpreting the results.
Start date : September 2019
Duration : 3 years
Salary : ~ 21’000 € / year gross salary in Grenoble and ~ 50’000 CHF / year gross salary in Geneva, according to respective university rules
Deadline : candidates are encourage to apply at their earliest convenience and no later than June 14th
Requirements :
– A MSc degree in astronomy, physics or related fields
– programming (Unix, Python, C)
– proficient in scientific English
Further inquiries and applications should be sent to both xavier.bonfils@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr and francois.bouchy@unige.ch
Applications should include :
– a curriculum vitae
– a cover letter listing 2 names of references / referees. Up to 2 reference letters can be sent by the referee themselves.
– diploma and grades for the previous 2 years
– manuscripts, reports, presentation, code or any product from previous research experience is also welcome
