Jobs and Careers

Postdoctoral Researcher in Extragalactic Astrophysics

Haverford College

Haverford Campus, United States, United Statesfull_timeVerifiedPosted 5 Sept 2025

About the role

Job Title

Job Description Summary

Haverford College invites applications for our full-time (37.5 hours per week), fixed-term (2 year appointment), exempt, benefits-eligible Postdoctoral Research in Extragalactic Astrophysics opportunity.

Job Description

Haverford Offers Great Benefits:

The College offers a comprehensive benefits program that includes possible work-from-home opportunities, automatic 10% retirement contribution to your retirement account upon eligibility (no match required), a 50% tuition benefit for dependent children upon eligibility, 14 paid holidays (including the week before New Year’s Day off), Health Savings Account contribution of $700 for individuals and$1400 for families (no match required), affordable medical plans, and a beautiful arboretum campus with walking trail and easy public transportation access. Please visit the Benefits page (https://www.haverford.edu/human-resources/benefits) for more information.

Work Location: On-Site

About Haverford College Physics and Astronomy

Haverford College’s Physics & Astronomy department, is a research active physics and astronomy department in a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI). In recent years the department has graduated up to 30 majors (typically 25% in astrophysics), and has seven tenure line faculty, a laboratory instructor/observatory technician and 1-6 visiting or research faculty/staff (depending on year/semester). The person hired will have an office across the hall from the PI in the historic Strawbridge Observatory (which also boasts a 12” and 16” telescope, used for classes and public observing); the rest of the department is based in the Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center (KINSC) building complex across campus.

Haverford College, and its Arboretum campus is located in the “Main Line” suburbs of Philadelphia. Philadelphia is an easy 15-20-minute trip by train (20-25 min drive).

About the Position

The Postdoctoral Researcher in Extragalactic Astrophysics will work with Karen Masters, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and collaborators in Galaxy Zoo, the Zooniverse and the Roman Science team on integrating Roman Space Telescope images into Galaxy Zoo. The Postdoctoral Researcher will also lead research projects of mutual interest from analogous (and currently available data) from Galaxy Zoo: Euclid or JWST (COSMOS-web and CEERS). The successful candidate will become a core member of the Galaxy Zoo science team. The Postdoctoral Researcher is responsible for being an active researcher into extragalactic astrophysics in collaboration with Prof. Karen Masters, and meeting NASA Roman funded project goals for working towards launching a Roman Space Telescope version of Galaxy Zoo.

Primary Responsibilities

Work with collaborators on the Roman Team, Zooniverse and Galaxy Zoo
- Integrate image cutout tools with the Roman Pipeline
- Set up the “Roman Galaxy Zoo” project (e.g., cutout generation, target selection)
- Develop materials to help support development of other Roman Zooniverse projects
- Publish and disseminate research via the normal routes (expectation for at least one first author paper each year, and collaborative work on more as well as active attendance at a reasonable number of National or International research conferences, workshops, and collaboration meetings)
Develop research leadership skills via working with undergraduate student researchers
Collaborate with the Galaxy Zoo science team on research projects

Line of Report: The Postdoctoral Researcher in Extragalactic Astrophysics reports to Karen Masters, Professor of Physics and Astronomy.

Minimum Qualifications