Postdoctoral Fellowships at Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT (August)

1. Postdoctoral Associate

• Job Number: 21700
• Functional Area: Research - Engineering
• Department: Aeronautics and Astronautics
• School Area: Engineering

• Employment Type: Full-Time
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule
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POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Aeronautics and Astronautics, to be responsible for conducting research in astrodynamics and related fields. Will develop formal method algorithms for autonomous aerospace systems to satisfy required system specifications.  Responsibilities include conducting research in astrodynamics using theoretical and numerical tools; publishing research results in leading journals and conferences in the fields of robotics, formal methods, controls and machine learning; collaborating with graduate students working on related research projects; assisting with leading group projects; and assisting lab leadership with sponsor communications.  

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering or related field; a background and experience in satellite hardware and simulations; knowledge of mission design, small satellite hardware development and space technologies; a record of peer-reviewed publications and an interest in publishing the findings of this research; excellent analytical, problem-solving, technical writing, documentation, organizational, and interpersonal skills; proficient English communication skills; and self-motivation.  Must be able to prioritize and multitask; execute detailed technical protocols meticulously; and contribute both independently and collaboratively in a dynamic, multidisciplinary, and team-oriented environment.  PREFERRED: ability to conduct problem formulation in multi-agent motion planing and propose approaches based on formal methods and control theory to solve such problems; programming experience in Python, MATLAB, or other language for data analysis; and ability to apply machine learning and deep learning methods to robotics and to work in Linux-based high-performance computing environments.  Job #21700P

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2. Postdoctoral Associate

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• Job Number: 20861
• Functional Area: Research - Scientific
• Department: Center for Biomedical Innovation
• School Area: Engineering

• Employment Type: Full-Time Temporary
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule:

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Center for Biomedical Innovation (CBI), to develop innovative processes for viral vector production as part of a collaborative, interdisciplinary team at the forefront of gene therapy vector production.  MIT CBI is developing new, intensified production processes for viral vector manufacturing using the baculovirus expression system and the insect cell line Sf9 to provide a solution to meet this increased demand.  Will design and execute experiments to establish the kinetics of infection and production in shake-flask and stirred-tank bioreactor culture; develop and optimize upstream processes for cell growth, infection, and vector harvest; and analyze and characterize cell culture and viral vector production processes using a variety of methods such as ELISA, ddPCR, analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC), electrophoresis, and HPLC.  Will be working with researchers in the MIT Chemical Engineering department and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

 

A full job description is available here.  

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  Ph.D. in biochemical/chemical engineering, biological sciences, or related field; demonstrated experience with the growth of insect cells, especially Sf9, and/or virus production in small-scale vessels and bioreactors; experience with bioreactor set-up, operation, and maintenance; experience with the analysis of cell culture medium components; ability to prioritize multiple responsibilities, troubleshoot technical issues, and develop and execute detailed technical protocols; strong documentation and written and oral communication skills; and ability to work independently and as part of a team.  PREFERRED: experience developing and engineering recombinant baculovirus.  Job #20861

This is a one-year appointment with the possibility of extension based upon satisfactory performance and availability of funding.

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3. Postdoctoral Associate, Laboratory of Applied Nuclear Physics (LANPh)

• Job Number: 21687
• Functional Area: Research - Engineering
• Department: Nuclear Science and Engineering
• School Area: Engineering

• Employment Type: Full-Time
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule:

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Nuclear Science and Engineering-Laboratory of Applied Nuclear Physics (LANPh) (2 openings), to work on groundbreaking research in the area of nuclear physics applied to problems in nuclear security such as arms control, cargo security, and nuclear detection. The principal duties include contributing to existing projects at LANPh in leading/coleading roles' guiding graduate and undergraduate students in their research, designing experiments and new engineering concepts, and co-authoring papers and proposals.

For additional information about the lab’s recent work, please see:

• Treaty Verification with Resonant Phenomena--MIT: Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy
• Use of compact neutron beams for Neutron Resonance Transmission Analysis (NRTA) at  Phys. Rev. Applied 15, 054026 (2021) - Neutron-Resonance Transmission Analysis with a Compact Deuterium-Tritium Neutron Generator (aps.org)

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  PhD  in experimental nuclear physics, particle physics, high energy physics, nuclear engineering, or a very closely related field; solid publication record; strong data analysis skills; strong Monte Carlo simulation skills; and solid communication skills.  PREFERRED: C++, and knowledge/use of ROOT libraries;  knowledge of scientific computation in python is a plus; good knowledge of GEANT4 libraries;  knowledge of MCNP is a plus; some experience coding DAQ software is a plus; experience in research in arms control and nuclear detection; good knowledge of low energy nuclear physics; and experience leading graduate and/or undergraduate students in their research.  Job #21687

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4. Postdoctoral Associate, Center for Constructive Communication

• Job Number: 20517
• Functional Area: Research - Scientific
• Department: Media Lab
• School Area: Architecture & Planning

• Employment Type: Full-Time
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule:

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Media Lab-Center for Constructive Communication (CCC), to design human-machine systems that improve communication across divides and increase opportunity for underheard communities to make their voices heard on important issues that affect their everyday lives. Responsibilities include identifying and developing new areas of research that align with CCC’s mission and enable the postdoc to further develop their research agenda and publication record; mentoring students to help them develop strong research agendas and track records in the areas of NLP (natural language processing), machine learning, media analytics, and other related topics; assuming a leadership role in support of existing research efforts; and partnering with designers, engineers, and other CCC leadership team members to help set research direction and strategy. 

A full description is available here.

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  a Ph.D. in computer science, machine learning, statistics, applied math, information science, or other related discipline; and a strong publication record in NLP and/or computational social science-related conferences (e.g., EMNLP, ACL, NAACL, INTERSPEECH, ICWSM, WWW, CSCW, IC2S2, NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR). PREFERRED:  a interest in mentorship as exhibited by actively supporting master’s and Ph.D. students in developing and executing projects that enable them to build a strong research track record; and an interest in learning more about how methods from computer science and analytics might be combined with tools from causal inference, ethnolography, design, and other topics from the social sciences.  Job #20517

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5. Postdoctoral Associate

• Job Number: 21686
• Functional Area: Research - Scientific
• Department: Center for Global Change Science
• School Area: Science

• Employment Type: Full-time Temporary (Hybrid)
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule:

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Center for Global Change Science, to join an international team of experimentalists and theoreticians in the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE) and a large atmospheric chemistry group at MIT.  The work will focus on interpretation of AGAGE observations of greenhouse and ozone-depleting gases using models, measurements, and inverse methods.

Additional information about MIT Atmospheric Chemistry and Professor Prinn is available at http://atmoschem.mit.edu and http://mit.edu/rprinn.  

Job Requirements

REQUIRED: a Ph.D. in some area of atmospheric physics and chemistry; experience in three-dimensional atmospheric chemical transport modeling. PREFERRED:  experience using the noted models together with observations to optimally estimate trace gas sources and sinks (i.e., inverse modeling).  Job #21686

In addition to applying online via the MIT website, qualified scientists are also asked to send electronically a CV, a brief statement of research interests, and three letters of recommendation to rprinn@mit.edu.   Applications will be considered upon receipt and until the position is filled.

This is a one-year appointment with the possibility of renewal.

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6. Postdoctoral Associate, Climate-System Modeling Within Integrated Human-Earth System Model Framework

• Job Number: 21684
• Functional Area: Research - Scientific
• Department: Center for Global Change Science
• School Area: Science

• Employment Type: Full-time Temporary (Hybrid)
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule:

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, CLIMATE-SYSTEM MODELING WITHIN INTEGRATED HUMAN-EARTH SYSTEM MODEL FRAMEWORK, Center for Global Change Science, to work in the area of climate and Earth-system modeling within the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.  Will join a multidisciplinary team of researchers studying environmental impacts as well as physical and transition risks of global-to-regional mitigation and adaptation policies. The primary responsibility will include the operation, development, and analyses with the MIT Earth System Model (MESM) as well as its linkages and coupling to models of socio-economic systems, managed resources (i.e., water-energy-land), and air pollution within the MIT’s Integrated Global Systems Model (IGSM) framework.  

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  a Ph. D. in climate/Earth-system science or a closely related field; proficiency with scientific programming languages (e.g., Fortran, C/C++, and/or MATLAB) and GIS-based and/or geospatial graphical analysis software; experience with code development, management, and numerical experimentation within Linux-based high-performance computing architectures; knowledge of and experience working with large, environmental data sets; and the ability to work within an interdisciplinary group to meet objectives of the broader program.  PREFERRED:  experience and proficiency with community-based Earth-system models such as Community Earth System Model (CESM) and/or the Energy, Exascale, Earth System Model (E3SM) . Job #21684

In addition to applying online via the MIT website, qualified scientists are asked to send a brief statement of research interests (no more than one page) with a CV and the names and contact information for three professional references to the attention of Dr. Adam Schlosser, Deputy Director of the MIT Joint Program via email to postdoc2022_mesm@mit.edu.

This is a one-year (hybrid schedule) appointment with the possibility of extension depending on funding and performance.

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7. Postdoctoral Associate

• Job Number: 21001
• Functional Area: Research - Scientific
• Department: Earth, Atmospheric &  Planetary Sciences
• School Area: Science

• Employment Type: Full-Time Temporary
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule:

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, to conduct research in Wanying Kang’s research group.  The research is related to work on ocean dynamics and ocean-ice interaction on icy satellites. Since icy moons are one of the most promising targets for life detection beyond earth, the group is trying to understand how potential biosignatures may be transported by ocean circulation and wave dynamics and how to infer the properties of the subsurface oceans from their ice shell geometries or other directly observable quantities.  

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  Ph.D. in atmospheric, oceanic dynamics or planetary sciences or closely related field; and experience with programming languages such as Python, Fortran, MATLAB, or similar.  Some familiarity with numerical simulation and large-scale atmospheric/oceanic dynamics will be beneficial. Job #21001

Application deadline: September 30, 2022

This is a one-year term appointment with the possibility of extension.

In addition to applying online via the MIT website, candidates are welcome to contact Dr. Wanying Kang at wanying@mit.edu, with a complete CV and a short description of research interests. 

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8. Postdoctoral Associate

• Job Number: 21679
• Functional Area: Research - Scientific
• Department: Plasma Science and Fusion Center
• School Area: VP Research

• Employment Type: Full-Time
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule:

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), to conduct research in the areas of fusion neutronics. The research focuses on advancing the state of the art for benchmark problems for DT tokamaks using the SPARC tokamak facility.  Will be responsible for maintaining complex CAD models of the SPARC facility for neutron transport simulations, working with researchers and technicians collecting experimental measurements around the facility for comparison to simulations, making original research contributions to the PSFC program, producing work for publication, and presenting work at scientific conferences.  

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering or related field; a strong background in Monte Carlo methods or computational physics; and proficiency with Python programming.  Seek someone who enjoys working in a team-oriented environment and can communicate effectively with staff and students from MIT, other universities, and national laboratories.  PREFERRED:  Experience with activation workflows, shut-down dose rate calculations, and computational benchmarking.  Job #21679

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9. Postdoctoral Associate

• Job Number: 21673
• Functional Area: Research - Engineering
• Department: Aeronautics and Astronautics
• School Area: Engineering

• Employment Type: Full-Time
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule:

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Aeronautics and Astronautics, to conduct independent research on wavefront control for high-contrast imaging.  Responsibilities will include advancing the state of the art in exoplanet direct imaging by developing and testing new techniques for wavefront sensing and control for future NASA flagship missions; performing simulations and statistical analyses of these new methodologies; publishing research results in leading journals and conferences in the fields of astronomical science and instrumentation; helping to supervise graduate students at the S.M. and Ph.D. levels; regularly engaging with project sponsors from government and industry; taking on roles of project leadership, program development, and management; and performing duties as needed.  

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  expertise with optimization, approximation algorithms, estimation, and control; strong analytical, problem-solving, documentation, project management, organizational, time management, interpersonal, and verbal and written communication skills; ability to motivate and supervise multiple people (including graduate students at the S.M. and Ph.D. levels) in a multidisciplinary environment and to interface with sponsors; and discretion and good judgment with confidential information and/or issues.  PREFERRED:  experience with wavefront control with application to astronomy; experience programming in Python, MATLAB, or other programming languages for data analysis; experience working with optical simulation software; and experience programming for FPGA.  Job #21673

Travel to professional conferences and meetings with sponsors is required.

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10. Postdoctoral Associate

• Job Number: 21632
• Functional Area: Research - Other
• Department: Political Science
• School Area: Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences

• Employment Type: Full-Time
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule: M-F

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, Political Science, to join a National Science Foundation-funded computational social science research project with Professor In Song Kim.  The project focuses on using computational methods to examine special interest group politics and trade politics in the U.S.  Responsibilities include analyzing lobbying and campaign donation data and developing/maintaining a large-scale money-in politics database.  The team is currently developing novel computational methods for social science research such as community detection and graphical neural network methods to infer political networks; and natural language processing (NLP) methods to investigate congressional bill writing and entity disambiguation.  The position offers an opportunity to engage in independent research projects according to the candidate's substantive research interests/background.  

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  Ph.D. (or an anticipated Ph.D. completion by May 2023) in and research experience with computational social science, political science, computer science, economics, or a related field; ability to work independently with general supervision and as part of a team; experience working with remote servers (Linux CLI, AWS); Python/Git development skills; and knowledge of SQL and relational database modeling.  PREFERRED:  experience with data-driven social sciences, experience with large-scale data handling, and knowledge of Postgres.  Job #21632

Visa support is available for this position.

A complete application should include (as a single PDF) a cover letter that includes your earliest preferred start date, a curriculum vitae, and a two-to-four page research statement. Applications will be reviewed as they are received and the position will remain open until filled. 

There is a targeted start date of May 2023 (though there may be flexibility to start earlier or later). 

This is a one-year term appointment with the possibility of renewal based on funding and performance.

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11. Postdoctoral Associate

• Job Number: 21628
• Functional Area: Research - Scientific
• Department: Plasma Science and Fusion Center
• School Area: VP Research

• Employment Type: Full-Time Temporary
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: Yes
• Schedule:

POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE, DISRUPTION RESEARCH, Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), to work in the area of computational fusion plasma and stability physics research. The research will primarily focus on the SPARC tokamak, a novel and powerful instrument designed to be the world’s first net-energy fusion experiment.  Will lead the development of a root cause analysis workflow for plasma instabilities and disruption precursors, with a strong emphasis on data-driven, physics-based models and their integration. Knowledge of database development and curation is required to help assemble dedicated databases for SPARC and become a subject matter expert guiding collaborators’ work. Will collaborate with a team to optimize potential solutions for real-time deployment. Emphasis will be placed on benchmarking different data-driven predictive modeling solutions for general disruption prediction and confinement optimization. Will contribute original research to the PSFC program, produce work for publication, and present work at scientific conferences.  

Job Requirements

REQUIRED:  a Ph.D. in plasma physics or closely related science and engineering discipline; experience working with data at scale and understanding of plasma stability, disruptions, and their experimental measurements; proficiency with Python or MATLAB programming; experience with common open-source software development practices; and ability to communicate effectively and work in a dynamic, fast-paced, team-oriented environment with staff and students from MIT, other universities, national laboratories, and private industry.  PREFERRED:  experience applying machine learning to predictive modeling. Job #21628

The position is for two years and will be located at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT.

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For detail please visit the official site