Archive Scientist

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Job Summary

IPAC at the California Institute of Technology is soliciting applications for an Archive Scientist to work on the Near-Earth Object Surveyor (NEOS) program and the SPHEREx mission. NEOS is a NASA Planetary Defense mission that will launch in late 2027 and will conduct a mid-infrared imaging survey of the sky that will detect, track, and characterize Near-Earth Objects, particularly those that pose a hazard to Earth, and more distant small bodies in the solar system. SPHEREx, the Spectrophotometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission which will conduct a spectroscopic, infrared survey of the entire sky starting in 2025.

IPAC is developing and will operate the NEOS Survey Data System (NSDS) that ingests raw data from the flight system, processes those data into calibrated images and source detections, performs automated searches for moving solar system objects, and assesses the quality of the survey data. Long-term archiving and public access to the NEOS image and extracted source data products will be done in collaboration with the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA).

IPAC provides the SPHEREx Science Data Center (SSDC), which is responsible for the development and operation of the data pipeline and for the archiving and support of the data at IRSA.

Essential Job Duties

As NSDS Archive Scientist, you will report to the NSDS Lead Scientist and System Architect.   As the SSDC Archive Scientist, you will report to SSDC Lead.  Your duties will include:

• Serving as the primary technical liaison between the NSDS and IRSA.
• Coordinating and documenting the operational and data interfaces between the NSDS and IRSA.
• Working with the NSDS quality assurance team to validate transfer of data into the NEOS archive.
• Working with the SSDC team on validation of the science data products.
• Coordinating with IRSA the design and development of user interfaces to the services that provide access to the NEOS and SSDC data products.
• Contributing to general analysis and documentation of the NEO Surveyor and SPHEREx data products that will be served by IRSA. 

Basic Qualifications

• PhD in astronomy, planetary science or a related discipline and two years of post-PhD experience.
• Experience in the design, implementation and use of scientific archives and their user interfaces.
• Good communication skills and experience working in a team of dedicated scientists and engineers.
• Ability to write and maintain documents that describe software design, usage, and interfaces, including tracking results from testing and validation.

Preferred Qualifications

Besides these basic qualifications, there are a set of skills and experience that will enhance your contributions as the NEOS and SPHEREx Archive Scientist. The following might give you a head start, but even if these don’t describe you or your experience, we would still like to hear from you.

• Experience in infrared astronomy, especially infrared or spectroscopic survey observations.
• Plans for an active research program that will make use of the image and catalog data from the NEOS and/or SPHEREx.

Required Documents

• Curriculum Vitae
• Cover Letter
• Names and contact information for 3 references

Applications are due by April 26, 2024.

IPAC, part of the Physics, Math, and Astronomy Division at Caltech (www.caltech.edu), partners with NASA, NSF, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, operated for NASA by Caltech), and the world-wide research community to advance exploration of our universe.  IPAC provides science operations, user support, data and archive services, and scientific vision to maximize discovery with observatories both in space and on the ground.  Scientists at IPAC have access to Palomar Observatory and other research facilities.