CosmicAI Postdoctoral Fellow

The newly established NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins (CosmicAI) seeks to hire a postdoctoral fellow to initiate a new comprehensive research program exploring the surrogate modeling of astrophysical systems. The Fellow, based at the University of Texas at Austin, will collaborate with CosmicAI researchers within the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences and with team members across the Institute to facilitate the development of cutting-edge AI tools and methodologies.  CosmicAI fellows will have full access to Institute facilities and equipment (e.g., world-class computational resources at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, including Vista, a newly instantiated 600 GPU node cluster). Applicants with expertise in computational astrophysics, astrochemistry, machine learning, and/or reduced order modeling are preferred.

The NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins (CosmicAI) aims to grow transformative AI advances with the overarching goal to increase the accessibility of astronomy data and knowledge for researchers, students, and the public. CosmicAI leverages partnerships between academia (UT Austin, U. of Virginia, U. of Utah, UCLA), national facilities (NSF NRAO and NSF NOIRLab), nonprofits, and industry to develop capabilities that enable astronomical researchers to conceptualize, define, and execute research projects via trustworthy, efficient, robust, and explainable AI methods. By building next-generation AI tools the Institute aims to accelerate discoveries related to the most basic human question: Where do we come from?

The Fellow will be expected to spend 50% of their time on CosmicAI related research efforts, with the remaining 50% available for independent research; ideally there will be substantial overlap between the two.  The appointment will be initially for a two-year period and is renewable for a third year. Fellowships are for the period September 1 — August 31.