NASA Postdoctoral Program - High Contrast Astronomical Imaging and Interferometry

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 the direct detection of faint emission from exoplanets and exozodiacal/debris disks using high-contrast near-neighbor detection techniques at the Palomar Observatory. The research involves working with two facilities available on the Hale 200-inch telescope: an off-axis subaperture corrected to extreme adaptive optics levels for testing and observation with various coronagraphs, and a rotating multi-aperture nuller that demonstrates the complete companion detection strategy for a rotating space-based nulling interferometer. Technical work in these areas is envisioned, along with observational searches for faint companions such as brown dwarfs and hot young planets around nearby stars, with the eventual goal of deployment on larger telescopes and in space.