"Postdoctoral Scholar - Space Sciences Laboratory - UC Berkeley"

Position Description

We are seeking a postdoctoral scholar for the NSF ATI-funded project, 'Advancing Adaptive Optics into the Visible for Black Hole Science.' The scholar will be supervised and mentored by Prof. Jessica Lu at UC Berkeley and will also collaborate with Dr. Antonin Bouchez at the W.M. Keck Observatory.

The postdoc will perform an in-depth study of the adaptive optics (AO) wavefront error budget both for the current laser-guide star AO systems at Keck and for a future visible-light AO system on the Keck I telescope. This study includes use of analytic error budgets and high-fidelity wave-optics simulation of the telescope, AO system, and instrument. This 'digital twin' of the Keck I AO system will be used to evaluate the impact of optical and calibration errors of the current system and compared, in detail, to on-bench and on-sky telemetry for a deeper understanding of residual wavefront errors and delivered AO performance. Responsibilities include designing experiments, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, running simulations, drafting and disseminating results, and designing publicly available web tools based on the techniques and results from the research project.

The postdoc will conduct work both at UC Berkeley and at Keck Observatory for extended periods of time. The exact duration of work at each location is negotiable.

The postdoc will work with both the Keck Observatory AO team and with the UC Berkeley Moving Universe Lab team. These teams include experts in adaptive optics, opto-mechanics, high-speed detectors, real-time control computing, hardware and software, high-performance computing, and data science. The postdoc will have access to lab space at UC Berkeley and Keck Observatory headquarters and will actively work with the Keck AO systems.

Department: https://www.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Lab: https://keckobservatory.org/