Postdoctoral Research Associate

The Role and Department

The Department is one of the UK's leading Mathematics departments with an outstanding reputation in teaching, research, and employability of our students. It has an active programme of internationally recognized research in Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Probability. The research culture is vibrant, with many visitors, seminars, international conferences, and workshops. We aim to provide a supportive and friendly environment with a strong sense of community.

The Department currently has 116 permanent members of staff, following a process of significant growth. The Department holds an Athena SWAN Silver award. Athena SWAN is a national initiative that recognises the advancement of gender equality, representation, progression, and success for all in academia. The Department also supports the London Mathematical Society Good Practice Scheme, whose aim is to support mathematics departments to embed equal opportunities for women within their working practices.

Durham University is committed to the Concordat to support the career development of researchers. For further information please visit the Research Staff web pages on

The Role

Applications are invited for a three-year postdoctoral position within the Applied Mathematics research group, to start 1st October 2026. The position is funded by a UKRI/STFC grant to investigate “Connecting interchange reconnection to switchbacks in the solar wind”. Candidates with a strong track record in MHD modelling, and/or familiarity with solar wind observational data, are particularly encouraged to apply. The position will be under the direction of Dr Peter Wyper with involvement from Dr Lorenzo Matteini at Imperial College London and will primarily involve MHD simulations of coronal jets and/or analysing PSP data to understand how magnetic switchbacks form and evolve within the solar wind.