Job description
Join the Flagstaff Astronomy Institute as an Astronomy Research Scientist and help transform cutting edge telescope data into advancing space science. This is a full-time position rooted in data analysis, software development, and collaborative research.
You will work with a cross-disciplinary team to extract meaningful results from imaging and spectroscopic datasets, develop scalable pipelines, and contribute to scientific publications and public outreach.
We value curiosity, rigorous analysis, and the ability to communicate complex ideas clearly to both scientific and public audiences.
Responsibility
- Lead data analysis pipelines for telescope imaging and spectroscopic datasets, ensuring accuracy and reproducibility.
- Develop and maintain software tools for data reduction, calibration, visualization, and metadata handling.
- Collaborate with astronomers to define science goals, analysis plans, and deliverables.
- Design experiments and implement robust quality checks; validate results across multiple datasets.
- Publish findings in peer reviewed journals and present at conferences; prepare figures and manuscripts.
- Mentor interns and junior analysts; contribute to team knowledge through documentation.
- Contribute to open source astronomy software projects and maintain technical documentation.
- Engage in outreach activities and citizen science initiatives to communicate science to diverse audiences.
Qualification
- Master's degree in astronomy, physics, data science, or a related field; PhD preferred.
- Strong programming skills in Python; experience with NumPy, SciPy, Astropy; proficiency in data analysis workflows.
- Experience with astronomical data formats (FITS), image processing, and visualization tools.
- Familiarity with SQL and data management; knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, GCP) is a plus.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills; ability to work in cross functional teams.
- Proven research track record with publications or conference presentations.
- Strong problem solving abilities, attention to detail, and time management skills.