Applicants are invited for a postdoctoral fellowship at the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) while also being an employee of the Universities Space Research Association’s (USRA) Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), both in Houston, Texas. Fellows will enjoy access to all of JSC’s laboratories and analytical instruments on the same basis as scientific staff.
The Fellowship in the field of astromaterials research involves the study of the origins, isotopic and elemental compositions, structure, and evolution of presolar grains identified in meteorites, interplanetary dust, asteroids, and comets. The Fellow will perform NanoSIMS analyses of presolar grains and will be encouraged to coordinate these analyses with focused ion beam (FIB)-assisted transmission electron microscope (TEM) mineral characterization. The isotopic properties of presolar grains provides remarkable insight into astrophysical processes while their mineralogies allow us to understand dust condensation in stellar atmospheres and subsequent alteration in various environments. Understanding their origins and histories is intimately linked with understanding the origin of the Solar System.