Full-time fixed-term contract (until 31 March 2026 with the possibility of extension contingent on further funding)

Closing date: 7-Jan-2025

For full details and to apply, please visit https://www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-jobs/description/index.php?jobId=22251

The Department of Physics at Imperial College London is recruiting two postdoctoral positions in space plasma physics in the following areas:

•       Magnetic reconnection, working with Prof. Jonathan Eastwood (jonathan.eastwood@imperial.ac.uk). You will address critical, fundamental questions about how magnetic reconnection works, and how it releases stored magnetic energy. More specifically, you will examine the nature of magnetic reconnection energy transport and conversion in different plasma regimes, and how energy partition is modified within reconnection exhausts. The work will contrast heliospheric observations from ESA’s Solar Orbiter and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe with magnetospheric measurements made by NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale mission. In doing this work you will collaborate with a variety of international partners based around these mission teams and wider activities in reconnection theory and modelling.

•       The near-Sun solar wind, working with Prof. Tim Horbury (t.horbury@imperial.ac.uk). Using data from Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter and BepiColombo, you will study the structure and dynamics of the inner heliosphere, including transient phenomena such as switchbacks, and large-scale magnetic field morphology as Solar Orbiter moves out of the ecliptic. You will combine both remote sensing and in situ data to link events to their solar origins. You will be joining an active group in solar wind physics, and collaborate widely with the wider heliospheric community in Europe and the USA.

For further questions or queries about each role, please contact the relevant PI of the position you are interested in and please visit https://www.imperial.ac.uk/space-and-atmospheric-physics/research/ for more information about space physics research at Imperial.

We are committed to equality of opportunity, to eliminating discrimination and to creating an inclusive working environment for all. We encourage candidates to apply irrespective of age, disability, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion and belief, gender reassignment, sex, or sexual orientation. You can read more about our commitment here https://www.imperial.ac.uk/equality/.

Imperial is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation.

For full details and to apply, please visit https://www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/search-jobs/description/index.php?jobId=22251