Research Associate in Cosmology and Gravitation (Fixed Term)

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate position in cosmology within the Stephen Hawking Centre for Theoretical Cosmology/GR group (www.ctc.cam.ac.uk) at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Candidates should be qualified to undertake research in the areas of the CMB, large-scale structure and early universe cosmology. Although all qualified candidates will be considered, we are particularly interested in candidates who can undertake work on higher-order correlators from Simons Observatory CMB data, notably CMB bispectra in combination with other cosmological probes, to gain new insights about inflation and fundamental theory.

The successful candidate will work primarily with Professors James Fergusson and Paul Shellard, as well as academic staff across the Relativity and Gravitation group (Challinor, Gratton, Sherwin, Cranmer, Hartnoll, Moore, Pajer, Reall, Santos, Sperhake, Wall and Warnick) and research staff and PhD students. There are close links with the HEP group and the AI Infosys Lab in DAMTP, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmology (www.kicc.cam.ac.uk).

The position is expected to be available on or soon after 1 September 2026, but the start date is flexible. Applicants should have, or be about to obtain, a PhD in a relevant area of theoretical physics, and to have an established track record of original research and experience of working in collaboration.

Duties will include developing and conducting individual and collaborative research objectives, proposals and projects. For data reduction aspects of this project, you will be expected to have computational experience, preferably on HPC systems with knowledge of parallelisation techniques and GPU programming. You will be expected to plan your own research, with guidance if required, and to assist in the preparation of funding proposals. You must be able to communicate material of a technical nature. You may be asked to assist in the supervision of student projects and development of skills and deliver seminars relating to the research area.

Further information about CTC can be found at www.ctc.cam.ac.uk and the GR Group at www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/research/gr/

Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available for 2 years in the first instance.

To apply online for this vacancy and to view further information about the role, please click 'Apply' above.

Informal enquiries may be made to James Parke (LE47448@maths.cam.ac.uk) or to Professor James Fergusson (jf334@cam.ac.uk) and Professor Paul Shellard (eps1@cam.ac.uk).

Please indicate the contact details (including email address) of three academic referees on the online application form and upload a full CV and a description of your recent research (not to exceed three pages).

Please let your referees be aware that they will be contacted by the Mathematics HR Office Administrator to request they upload a reference for you to our Web Recruitment System; and encourage them to do so promptly. Ensure that at least one of your referees is contactable at any time during the selection process. 

Please quote reference LE47448 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.

The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.

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