SIM's call for PhD candidates and MSc candidates: Expressions of interest for students at our team

The Scientific and Space Instrumentation and Modelling Group (SIM/CENTRA), with offices at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Oporto and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, welcomes expressions of interest for PhD students are out team.

This call is open until the 30th of June 2020. Accepted PhD students will be funded according to the FCT stipends table. MSc students may be funded.

Candidates in the areas of astrophysics, computer science and physics are encouraged to apply. Due to the particular interface between our astronomy group and the development of highly sophisticated instrumentation, engineering students that have ambitions to work within a top international team are also strongly encouraged to apply.

The SIM team operates in the global environment of large-scale, leading-edge infrastructures. Our activities include instrument building, data analysis and processing and scientific exploitation. We have expertise in optics and mechanics for optical/near-infrared cryogenic instrumentation, high angular resolution techniques, image and data processing, stellar and galactic astrophysics, and metrology lasers for space and terahertz devices. We also host the Portuguese VLTI Expertise Centre. Highlights of the work conducted by our team include the CLOUD experiment at CERN, the GRAVITY instrument for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the GAIA satellite for European Space Agency (ESA) and the METIS instrument for the ELT.

SIM/CENTRA considers of vital importance its contribution to the development and exploitation of large projects within ESO and ESA, in addition to other international initiatives. Besides participation in the on-going collaborations, we encourage the development of new initiatives that are important for career consolidation.

The expressions of interest should include:

• cover letter
• with a brief description of the candidate's motivation
• the geographical location (either Porto or Lisbon) where the local research work will be carried out
• the international location where the research will be carried out (in case of mixed fellowships)
• curriculum vitae (up to 5 pages, including grades in all courses and final degree grades)
• name and contact of up to two referees available to provide information about the candidate (to be contacted if necessary).

Expressions of interest should be sent to aamorim@sim.ul.pt and pgarcia@fe.up.pt.