Applications are invited for three postdoctoral positions in the Giustino research group at the University of Texas, Austin.

These positions are sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) within three distinct projects, broadly aimed at developing and applying many-body electronic structure methods for investigating electron-phonon interactions from first principles.

The first opening is part of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) effort at the University of Texas, Austin. The project will involve the study of thermal and electrical transport for applications in energy and electronic materials. The project will be carried out in close collaboration with the experimental group of Prof. Shi at UT. This project requires prior experience in ab initio calculation of transport coefficients, with an emphasis on thermal transport.

The second opening is part of a collaborative effort supported by the NSF program Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI). This effort is led by Prof. Giustino and involves the University of Texas at Austin, the University of California at Berkeley, the State University of New York at Binghamton, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center. This project will involve several students, researchers, and software scientists to develop an interoperable software ecosystem for many-body electronic structure calculations at finite temperature, with a focus on the EPW code, the BerkeleyGW code, and the SternheimerGW code, as well as infrastructure support by TACC. The successful candidate will have a solid background in many-body electronic structure methods, prior experience with the development of electronic structure software, and an interest in advancing community software.

The third opening is part of a collaborative effort supported by the NSF program Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF). It involves Prof. Giustino’s group at the University of Texas at Austin and the experimental group of Prof. Menendez at Arizona State University. This project focuses on the optical properties of indirect-gap semiconductors, and will require the development and implementation of new many-body methods for phonon-assisted optical processes beyond standard second-order perturbation theory. The successful candidate will have a strong background in solid-state physics, many-body perturbation theory, electron-phonon interactions, and previous experience in the development of electronic structure software.

The group has access to world-leading high performance computing resources provided by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). TACC is located minutes from the UT campus, and hosts Frontera, currently the 10th most powerful supercomputer in the world. TACC will also host the next-generation NSF national supercomputing facility, the Large Scale Computing Facility (LCCF), currently in the planning stage. The group sits within the Oden Institute, a research facility specializing in high-performance computing and data science, located at the heart of the UT Austin campus.

Interested applicants should send a cover letter and a curriculum vitae as a single PDF file to Annecy Liddell, [email protected]. Applicants should also arrange for two confidential reference letters to be sent to the same address.

Women and minority applicants are strongly encouraged to apply.

Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the positions are filled.

For more information feel free to contact Feliciano Giustino at [email protected]

Feliciano Giustino
W. A. "Tex" Moncrief, Jr. Chair of Quantum Materials Engineering
Professor of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin