Research Associate in Physics

Imperial College London

Job summary

The High Energy Physics Group at Imperial College London invites applications for a Research Associate position to work on the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in the USA. The research programme will be focussed on development of data acquisition systems for the DUNE detectors. The research programme will be conducted in the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College, at Fermilab and SURF, at CERN, and at collaborating UK institutes.

Job listing information

  • Reference NAT01474
  • Date posted 17 July 2023
  • Closing date 15 September 2023

Key information about the role

  • Location South Kensington Campus - Hybrid
  • Position type Full time, fixed term
  • Salary £45,593 – £53,334 plus benefits
  • Department Department of Physics
  • Category Researcher / Non Clinical Researcher

Job description

Job summary

The High Energy Physics Group at Imperial College London invites applications for a Research Associate position to work on the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in the USA. The research programme will be focussed on development of data acquisition systems for the DUNE detectors. The research programme will be conducted in the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College, at Fermilab and SURF, at CERN, and at collaborating UK institutes.

Duties and responsibilities

The Imperial DUNE group has responsibilities in the data acquisition software development for the DUNE liquid argon far detectors. You will work on the design, development and testing of these systems.

Essential requirements

You will have appropriate levels of professional qualifications and experience for example,

  • Research Associate level: Hold a PhD (or equivalent) in Physics
  • Research Assistant level: Near completion of a PhD (or equivalent) in Physics or hold Masters Degree in Computer Science (or equivalent). *

You must have the following essential criteria:

  • Experience with software development and use, particularly C++ and python;
  • A strong record of contributions to a major software project and/or experimental particle physics project;
  • Demonstrated ability of planning work of a small team, or developers or scientists, of varied expertise, defining milestones and ensuring results are achieved;
  • Experience in taking initiative and/or developing own ideas independently;
  • Flexibility to adapt to an evolving environment and to work in teams, both as the leader or as a member.

In addition, it would be desirable if you had:

  • Experience with design and development of distributed computing systems, in particular service-oriented architectures;
  • Experience with design and development of control and monitoring of applications distributed over multiple processes and multiple hosts;
  • Experience with development of Graphical User Interfaces;
  • Experience with agile development techniques and continuous integration processes;
  • Experience of working on the design and construction of HEP detectors;
  • Experience of working in the environment of a large international science collaboration.

Further information

This is a full time position available for two years in the first instance.

The post will be based in London but will require regular travel to Fermilab in the USA and CERN in Switzerland. Other UK and foreign travel is likely to be required.

*Candidates who have not yet been officially awarded their PhD will be appointed as Research Assistant within the salary range £40,694 - £43,888 per annum.

The High Energy Physics Group’s strategy for leadership in designing, constructing, and exploiting scientifically the leading experiments in particle physics sustains our high international profile. The Group has a strong ongoing experimental programme encompassing the T2K, Super-Kamiokande and future Hyper-Kamiokande experiments in Japan; the future neutrino oscillation experiment DUNE at Fermilab and SURF in the USA; the search for sterile neutrinos with SoLid in Belgium; the search for charged lepton flavour violation with COMET in Japan; the CMS and LHCb experiments at the LHC; the search for dark matter with the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment in the USA and the future XLZD experiment; the MICE experiment in the UK; the Atom Interferometer Observatory and Network (AION) project in the UK and the USA; SHiP and SuperNEMO activities and the development of future experiments and impact through the application of HEP technologies. There are also significant accelerator, phenomenology and Grid computing programmes. The Group is the host of two Imperial College Centres of Excellence: Centre for Clinical Application of Particles and Centre for High-Throughout Digital Electronics and Machine Learning.

More information about the Department of Physics and the High Energy Physics Group can be found on our webpages.

The Department of Physics is an IoP JUNO Practitioner and an Athena Silver SWAN Award winner reflecting our commitment to building a supportive, inclusive and highly motivated community. See our EDI webpage for more Information. We value diversity and strongly encourage applications from all backgrounds, especially those historically underrepresented in Physics.

Further details about the position are available from Professor Alexander Tapper, a.tapper@imperial.ac.uk.

Should you have any queries about the application process please contact Paula Brown, Section Administrator, paula.brown@imperial.ac.uk.

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