NASA Postdoctoral Program: Space Science - Formation of Habitable Planets

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 planetary habitability research, examining how planet properties, stellar radiation, and system dynamics determine the formation of habitable worlds. The research addresses key questions including whether habitable planets can form in binary star systems, how Jupiter-like planets influence habitability, and how volatiles like water are delivered to rocky planets. This research is particularly timely given NASA's Kepler spacecraft data on extrasolar planets. The position is located at Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, California, under the advisorship of Dr. Jack Lissauer.