The Interstellar Medium and Star Formation with Herschel and Beyond

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 new observational capabilities including the Herschel Space Observatory and ground-based facilities that are transforming our view of the interstellar medium and the formation of new stars. Herschel observations of dust emission suggest that filamentary structure dominates the interstellar medium (ISM) over a large range of scales. The research involves observational programs to exploit and extend this new view of the ISM, including Herschel Guaranteed Time and Open Time Key Projects on tracers ranging from ionized carbon to molecular oxygen. The position involves measurements of polarized emission and absorption from dust grains to understand the role of the magnetic field in determining the structure of the ISM and how the morphology of the gas and dust is related to star formation. Fellows can use the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) for spectral line observations and can be involved with analysis of data from suborbital balloon missions.