Postdoctoral Position

Rationale

The KOBE experiment is a legacy survey awarded with 175 nights at Calar Alto Observatory (Almería, Spain) with the CARMENES instrument. The KOBE acronym stands for K-dwarfs Orbited By habitable Exoplanets, which summarises the main objective of this project: looking for new worlds in the habitable zone of a particular type of stars which are the late K-dwarfs, having effective temperatures around 3800-4600 K. K-dwarf stars are the perfect hosts to search for planets in this range of distances. Contrary to G-dwarfs, the habitable zone is closer, thus making planet detection easier. And contrary to M-dwarfs, the stellar activity is much smaller, hence having a smaller impact in both the detectability and in the true habitability of the planet (e.g., strong flares might extinct life on the surface of a close planet). Also, K-dwarfs are the quietest in terms of oscillations, and granulation noise. Despite this, there is a desert of planets in the habitable zone of K-dwarfs due to a lack of observing programs devoted to this parameter space. KOBE will fill a key gap in our search for life outside of the Solar System

Job characteristics

The successful applicant will become part of the Remote Worlds Lab at the Center for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA) and the KOBE team. The postdoctoral position offered in this call includes a 50% of the time to be devoted to KOBE experiment tasks and 50% of the time devoted to projects lead by the successful applicant. It is expected that the members of the Remote Worlds Lab team are invited to participate in these projects lead by the applicant and help her/him in the development of such projects. The tasks related to the KOBE survey will include the analysis of radial velocity and photometric time series for the confirmation of planetary signals, the exploitation of the KOBE dataset, the preparation of the KOBE data release and legacy products at the end of the survey, etc.

Job conditions

The successful applicant will be hired by CSIC through an FC3 contract type (gross yearly salary of around 39.700 €/year). The financial support available for this contract allows for a contract duration of almost two years (21 months). The successful applicant will work at the Center for Astrobiology premisses located inside the European Space Agency (ESA) in Madrid (ESAC), located in Villafranca del Castillo, at aroun 30 km from Madrid city center and very close to small nearby towns like Villanueva de la Cañada, Majadahonda, Las Rozas or Villanueva del Pardillo. 

The Center for Astrobiology (CAB) is a mixed research center of the CSIC and INTA. Created in 1999, it was the first center in the world dedicated specifically to astrobiology research and the first non-US center associated with the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI), currently the NASA Astrobiology Program (NAP). It is a multidisciplinary center whose main objective is to study the origin, presence and influence of life in the universe. The Astrobiology Center was distinguished in 2017 by the Ministry of Science and Innovation as a “María de Maeztu” Unit of Excellence.

The CAB has led the development of the REMS, TWINS, and MEDA instruments, all of which have been operational on Mars since August 2012, November 2018, and February 2021, respectively; as well as the science of the RLS Raman instrument from ESA's ExoMars mission. In addition, the center develops the SOLID instrument, intended for the search for life in planetary exploration. The CAB also participates in different missions and instruments of great astrobiological relevance, such as CARMENES, CHEOPS, PLATO, BepiColombo, DART, Hera, the MIRI and NIRSpec instruments in JWST and the HARMONI instrument in ESO's ELT.

Application procedure

Pre-application procedure: In order to take into account the potential candidates well in advance of the call launch, please send us an email to kobe.experiment at gmail.com including your full name, current position, and a brief summary of the project you would like to develop during your postdoctoral stay at CAB.  The deadline for submission of these pre-applications is 12/April/2023 .
CSIC Job bank: The funding for this position is granted by the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) through a "Proyecto Intramural" granted to the PI of the KOBE experiment. As a consequence, the hiring process will follow the CSIC rules. This involves different steps that needed to be followed by the applicant before the official call is launched. All applicants must be included in the "Job bank" ("Bolsa de trabajo") of CSIC. To do this, you have to follow the steps listed below.

• You access the “Job Bank” in this link (first registering):  https://www.bolsatrabajo.csic.es/bolsa_trabajo/ 
• You create a “request form” (“Crear solicitud”) for the bank entitled “Fuera de convenio DOCTORES”, this is the item named “Solicitud de integración en la bolsa de trabajo Fuera de Convenio DOCTORES”.
• You fill all the information in there, with special attention to selecting the “Área de Ciencias y T ecnologías Físicas.” as your preferred area.
• You will have to upload your ID and your paperwork accrediting your status as Doctor (e.g., the Doctor degree).
• You will also have to include all the merits you have 

After this, a committee will evaluate your request and give you a preliminary score and you will have been added to the CSIC Job bank. This process can take up to several weeks and only those included in this Job bank will be allowed to apply to the position. 
Official call launch and procedure: The call will be launched by mid-April. The applicants that have passed the pre-application step will be notified and will be able to sign up for the the postdoctoral position application. A committe will interview all the applicants and then make a selection.