"Assistant Project Scientist - Earth & Planetary Science"

Position Overview

Position title: Project Scientist

Salary range: The UC academic salary scales set the minimum pay determined by rank and step at appointment. See the following table for the current salary scale: https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/2025-26/represented-july-2025-scales/t37-b.pdf. The current full-time base salary for this position is $76,700-$97,600.

Percent time: 100%

Anticipated start: September 2025

Position duration: Initial appointment is a one-year term; reappointment is dependent upon performance, programmatic need, and budget.

Position Description

The Global Seismology Research Group resides at UC Berkeley, within the Department of Earth and Planetary Science and the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. Our research focuses on improving our understanding of the present day structure and internal dynamics of our planet, from the crust to the inner core, using seismic imaging approaches.

We tackle the development and application of new methods for the computation of the seismic wavefield in complex 3D media, with a focus on complex structure in the deep mantle, and for tomographic imaging of elastic and anelastic structure using full waveform inversion (FWI), at the global and regional scale. For our applications, we make use of HPC supercomputing facilities at NERSC and ACCESS.

One of our recent interests is in the development and implementation of 'Box Tomography', i.e., how to perform FWI of remote target regions in the deep earth at the short periods relevant to teleseismic observations, while keeping the computational cost manageable.

One of our more exotic research directions concerns the Earth's 'hum' and the insights it brings to ocean/atmosphere/solid earth interactions. In order to better understand the chemical and thermal state of the mantle and the processes operating therein, we also seek to apply the latest findings of the mineral physics community within the context of our seismic probing and geodynamic modeling.

We also have an interest in the study of earthquake source mechanisms and scaling laws, as well as global seismic moment release and its relation to plate tectonics. Our research is supported through a variety of sources, mostly through grants from NSF.

The incumbent will implement a scalable version of the Distributed Finite Difference Method (DFDM) for seismic wave propagation in a global 3D elastic and attenuating Earth, for implementation in the new HPC facility 'Doudna' at NERSC. They will coordinate with collaborators at NERSC on this project and test and benchmark the new code against the Spectral Element Method, specifically the widely used and optimized SPECFEM3D_Globe code. They will also add features necessary for the application to real case scenarios (moment tensor source, anelastic attenuation) and demonstrate its efficiency and accuracy for deep earth modeling applications.

The candidate will participate in the development of an azimuthally anisotropic shear velocity model of the extended upper mantle transition zone in the southwest Pacific using full waveform inversion and shear wave splitting data. Additionally, the candidate will be expected to attend conferences, participate in developing grant proposals/reports and authoring or co-authoring technical papers.

Qualifications

Basic qualifications: PhD or equivalent international degree

Preferred qualifications: PhD in Geophysics; At least 4 years experience in quantitative seismology beyond the PhD; Experience with numerical methods for the computation of the seismic wavefield; Evidence for the successful development of methodologies for the computation of the seismic excitation and propagation of seismic waves in 3D visco-elastic and acoustic media and in particular handling solid-solid and solid-fluid boundaries with topography; Experience with the use of the spectral element SPECFEM suite of codes; Experience with seismic velocity imaging techniques.

Application Requirements: Curriculum Vitae; Research Statement.