Teaching Assistant

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The Teaching Assistant will be a resource for students to aid them in understanding lecture materials and completing lab assignments. In this role the virtual Student Teaching Assistant will attend each lecture and lead their respective workshops to aid the students in successfully completing the program.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Directly support their assigned students during every session to ensure students successfully complete every lab assignment.
• Evaluate and submit written grades for their student’s solutions to every assigned task in the course using a rubric of output correctness, accuracy, precision, efficiency, and runtime speed compared to the approved solutions.
• Take, track, and report on the attendance of each of their assigned students for every session throughout the workshop, including ensuring students arrive on time and stay online throughout each session.
• Serve as the first point of contact to answer technical questions (via 1:1 Zoom chat) from their assigned students while the primary instructor delivers the course material to the class.
• Lead their “TA Time” informal sessions allocated on the syllabus using Zoom breakout rooms to allow their students to collaborate to complete the assignments and explore extensions of the hands-on labs.
• Ensure all their assigned students can get the QIS102 software development tools and Python virtual environment working on each student’s computer.
• Remotely debug any Python code their assigned students have written that is not compiling or running correctly using Zoom. 
• Ensure they are personally completely familiar with the learning objectives and lab assignment requirements for every session in the course.
• TAs must attend every session, complete every lab, and upload their solutions to the QIS102 SharePoint site, whereupon the primary instructor will evaluate their work and provide feedback and suggestions.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• BA/BS degree or equivalent experience, preferably in Computer Science, Mathematics, or Physics.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication skills, including speaking clearly, simply, and patiently with students who may be non-native English speakers and have limited initial skills.
• Expert skills at debugging Python code and writing Python code using industry best practices for software development.
• Must strongly desire to educate and inspire junior colleagues to help them master new QIS skills.
• After-hours availability will be required, including reviewing material again with students and troubleshooting their code.
• Must show respect for support for diversity, equity, and inclusion principles and guidelines.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Python 3.11+ and be familiar with creating and managing virtual environments for Python using Conda and Pip.
• Experience using an integrated development environment such as Visual Studio Code, PyCharm, or Thonny.
• Knowledge of command line interfaces (Apple iTerm2, Windows PowerShell, Linux shells, etc.) to manipulate files and folders.
• Previously completed courses in linear algebra, trigonometry, probability and statistics, multivariable calculus, differential equations, and complex analysis. Ideally, will have taken a course in quantum mechanics.
• Experience using Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, or Google Drive.

Environmental, Health & Safety Requirements:

• Any information pertaining to the environment, health or safety requirements for a position that will be considered when evaluating a candidate (e.g., details from JAF)

Other Information: 

• This position will be entirely remote for the duration of the term.
• BNL will not provide visa sponsorship for this position.

Brookhaven Laboratory is committed to providing fair, equitable and competitive compensation. The full salary range for this position is $16.50 - $29.50 p/h. Salary offers will be commensurate with the final candidate’s qualification, education and experience and considered with the internal peer group.

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