Vacancy Notice: ALMA Regional Centre Astronomer

Published: 22 Apr 2021
N159 in LMC: Herschel image & SEPIA spectra

For its ALMA Regional Centre at the Headquarters in Garching near Munich, Germany, ESO is opening the position of:

ALMA Regional Centre Astronomer

The closing date for receipt of applications to be considered for the position is 10 May, 2021.  

The ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) department at ESO provides the interface between the European ALMA Users Community and the ALMA observatory in Chile. Its mission is: To achieve, promote, and provide high-caliber support to the ALMA user community and to ALMA Observatory global operations, including coordinated delivery of software. To provide quality-assured, high-quality data products for PIs and archive users, within target time-windows. To facilitate ALMA science performed by expert and non-expert users alike via coordination of user support.

The ARC is looking for an astronomer with a strong and active research profile in radio or millimetre astronomy. The ARC Astronomer will contribute to core ARC duties, and in particular to those related to the quality assurance of ALMA data delivered to European PIs. The post holder should have a strong interest in maximizing ALMA's science output through conducting expert user support and operations support tasks and contributing to the development of efficient processes and tools.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

  • Play a key role in the ALMA quality assurance process in Europe by performing both manual and pipeline reduction of interferometric and single dish data, and oversee reprocessing efforts;
  • Perform general ARC duties, including Helpdesk and Phase 2 support;
  • Perform Astronomer-on-Duty shifts in Chile;
  • Proactively propose improvements of existing processes and documentation, and suggest new methods to increase quality and efficiency of ARC services;
  • Contribute to the development of training material for ALMA users;
  • As an astronomer and member of the ESO Astronomy Faculty, you will be expected and encouraged to conduct a strong personal research programme and to participate actively in the scientific life of ESO and interact with other parts of the wider organisation;
  • The tasks are not limited to the above and a flexible approach and willingness to adapt is required.

For more information, please see the full vacancy announcement on the ESO Recruitment Portal website.

Contact:
Email: vacancy@eso.org