NASA Postdoctoral Program - Direct Imaging of Circumstellar Disks & Exoplanets

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on observational research on circumstellar disks with the goals of imaging new systems, understanding their structure, dust properties, and evolution via multiwavelength observations, and searching for associated planets. The research utilizes recent imaging data from the Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, combined with infrared spectral energy distributions from the Spitzer Space Telescope and Herschel Space Observatory. Related research includes preparatory work for disk imaging with the coronagraph instrument on the Roman Space Telescope, scheduled for launch by spring 2027. The position is located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, within a dynamic environment for exoplanet research with NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program Office and collaborations with local exoplanet researchers.