Postdoctoral Research Associate

Position Highlights

The Lunar & Planetary Laboratory and the Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Arizona has an opening for a Postdoctoral Research Associate I in the field of thermodynamic modeling of planetary materials. The group’s areas of interest span a broad range of topics including lunar processes, the origins of presolar circumstellar dust, the high‑temperature origins of the first solar‑system solids, and low‑temperature aqueous chemistry that occurred within asteroids in the early solar system.

The position is a year‑to‑year appointment contingent upon funding and performance.

• The successful applicant will conduct original research related to the origins of refractory calcium‑aluminum‑rich inclusions (CAIs), the first solids to have formed in the solar system.
  
  Duties include:
  
  construction and cataloging of thermochemical databases; using density functional theory to compute the thermochemical properties of mineral phases relevant to CAIs and their solid solutions; and constructing thermodynamic models and calculating the phase diagrams of those systems.
• Participation in group meetings, presentation of results at conferences, and preparation of original scientific research manuscripts are expected activities.

• PhD in the field of Materials Science and Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Earth and Planetary Science, or a related field at the time of the appointment.

• Experience with the CALculation of PHase Diagram (CALPHAD) framework to compute and model the thermochemical properties of materials.
• Experience with density functional theory to model the free‑energy functions of materials.
• Experience with Thermocalc software to calculate phase diagrams.

FLSA:
Exempt | Full Time: 40 hours per week | Job FTE: 1.0 | Number of Vacancies: 1 | Target Hire Date: 1/5/2026 | Salary: NIH salary guidelines, Depends on Experience.

Tom Zega, tzega