Postdoctoral Researcher in Transient Astrophysics

Location:Denys Wilkinson Building

Applications are invited for Postdoctoral Researcher in Transient Astrophysics.

The University of Oxford Physics Department, together with Lancaster University, the University of Southampton and Queen’s University Belfast, is seeking to appoint one Postdoctoral Research Associate at each institution as part of the five-year STFC Large Award “TRANSCEND”. The TRANSCEND collaboration will use Vera Rubin/LSST transient data and the 4MOST Time-Domain Extragalactic Survey (TiDES) to address pressing questions in modern astrophysics: how stars explode and drive chemical enrichment, how supermassive black holes grow, and the true nature of Dark Energy. Each Postdoctoral Research Associate will lead one of the following areas:

• SNe Ia cosmology groundwork or rare transient follow-up and characterization (University of Oxford): use over 30,000 spectroscopically confirmed SNe Ia and 150,000 host-galaxy redshifts to improve SNe Ia standardisation and lay the groundwork for using SN cosmological measurements. Alternatively, focus on work on follow-up and modelling of rare transients.
• Host galaxies of transients (University of Southampton): derive host-galaxy properties from LSST+TiDES photometric and spectroscopic data, and use the unprecedented LSST+TiDES transient sample to study how transients correlate with their environments and measure rates of different classes of transient.
• Simulations and selection effects for SN Ia cosmology and beyond (Lancaster University): lead the forward-modelling of the combined LSST+TiDES sample, and characterize its associated sample selection effects. This project will include building galaxy population catalogues validated against state-of-the-art cosmological simulations (e.g. Illustris-TNG). This simulation effort will be the foundation underpinning every rate, host-galaxy and cosmological result in TRANSCEND.
• Transient physical properties and the black hole mass function of tidal disruption events (Queen’s University Belfast): measure key parameters such as luminosity and nickel masses for thousands of transients from TiDES + follow-up data to build population demographics, and use hundreds of live TDEs and thousands of host galaxies to derive scaling relations and occupation fractions for SMBHs.

This advertisement is for the post at the University of Oxford specifically; separate applications are required to each university for the other three posts. The postholder has opportunity to teach.

Applicants should possess, or close to obtaining a doctorate in physics or a related field and ideally a strong background in Physics or Astrophysics. Have relevant research experience and a proven record of research in time-domain astrophysics, supernovae, galaxy evolution, cosmology or survey science.

Please direct enquiries about the role to Profs Maria Vincenzi and Stephen Smartt

This is a full-time post, fixed term for 5 years

The closing date for applications is noon GMT time on Friday, 6 November 2026.

Pay Scale: RESEARCH GRADE 7

£39,474 to £47,779 per annum. Grade 7

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