Jobs

Please check the UCF Jobs site to see if we have positions open for postdoc positions. However, even if there are no formal listings in that site, if you are interested in working with us, please do check out the Research area of our website and then speak with any faculty here that matches your interests. Sometimes a postdoc position can be created if a strong candidate makes themselves known to us!

Also, one of the best ways of getting to know us is to come give a seminar or colloquium.  Please contact any member of the group to set up a visit.

Please check the UCF Jobs site to see if we have positions open for staff positions.

We are always looking for new graduate students to join our graduate program! Here is some advice about how to do that.

• Check out pages on our PhD program, the Physics Department’s page on graduate admissions, and the College of Graduate Studies’s page on admission and degree requirements.
• Look through our Research pages, and then contact by email faculty you’d be interested in working with. Let them know you’re interested in working with them, and ask if they are taking new students soon. Add some info in your email about your credentials and experience.
• We suggest this because sometimes a faculty member is not taking new students, and if that is the one and only person here you’d want to work with, then it’s probably a good idea to skip applying, alas, or wait a year.
• If there are several faculty here who are interesting to you, then of course definitely mention that in your application essay.
• It is always good to have a dialogue with any potential faculty mentor ahead of time!
• As a side note, Sarah Hörst maintains a list of open positions in planetary science PhD programs around the world (though it’s not exhaustive).

Here is some advice about the application essay.

• This is the main way we learn about your research, creative, and leadership abilities and accomplishments.
• Essays without specifics leave us guessing about what you might bring to our research efforts.
• Good essays often take 2-3 single-spaced and concise pages to describe the applicant’s experiences.
• So, please be to-the-point and include:
  – what you want to do, as specifically as you know it: for example, do you want to work on theory? observation? instrumentation? what topics? with whom? why?
  – descriptions of all research projects (ideally, backed up with letters from supervisors; you may send more than 3 letters);
  – description of your skills and experience with computers and programming;
  – leadership experience and creativity in any area or organization;
  – detail on anything where your creativity has helped the project;
  – detail on anything you’ve presented in a professional forum;
  – any other skills, experience, directions, etc. that we need to know about;
  – which UCF faculty you would be interested in working with, and why.
• Note that generally we don’t need to know things like how you knew you wanted to be a planetary scientist or physicist because of some experience you had when you were 5 years old.
• Also, while it is important to show that you know the implications and applications of your work, please spend most of your essay telling us about you and your experiences, not why the work is important in the grand scheme.
• For the description of your research experiences, give detail on the tasks you were given or took on for yourself, what YOU did and created, how that helped the project, how you interacted with others, and how/where you presented the final result (e.g., at a professional meeting, a published paper, etc.).

Some other useful points to note:

• If your goal is a PhD, say so. In the US it is common to be accepted into a 5-6-year PhD program directly with a Bachelor’s degree.  After two years, there is a candidacy examination, which is at the Masters level.  If the candidate fails the examination and is not ready for PhD study, he or she might still leave with an MS.  So, if you intend to get a PhD, state that on the application.
• If your goal is an MS as a terminal master’s degree, please note that we hardly ever offer admission to such applications (to check if the APS Bridge Program is of interest to you).
• Decide if you want the Planetary Sciences track, or if you want the regular Physics PhD program. The Physics Department runs both programs, but the courses and requirements are different. If your intent is to work in planetary science or geophysics or astronomy, be sure you state on your application form that you want to join the Planetary Sciences track.
• Be aware that UCF will allow us to admit someone for Fall study as late as June and for Spring admission as late as November 1.  However, most applications for Fall arrive by early January, and we make most funding decisions then. If you want support as a research or teaching assistant, treat December or early January as your deadline.
• If you want to put in an application sometime between January and April 15, we will of course consider it, just note that you may be on a waiting list for several months.
• If you want to put in an application after April 15, contact us first to see if it is going to be at all useful. No use wasting an application fee if all of our slots have been filled.

With graduate school becoming more and more competitive, it is almost a requirement that an undergraduate have a research experience to put on their résumé/CV. Even if you’re looking to enter a graduate program in something aside from planetary science or astronomy, working in a research group is a great way to get your feet wet with a multitude of marketable skills.

Many of our faculty are willing to take on undergraduates into their research groups at any time during the year. Please browse the Research area of our website to see what kind of work is being done, and then contact the faculty member directly by email. Sometimes faculty will advertise research opportunities with UCF’s OUR, but often a direct email is the best approach anyway. When you do send the email, include in there the following info: (i) Do you want to work for pay, for course credit, or as a volunteer? (ii) What time frame are you looking to work over, e.g. 3 months, 6 months, a year or more? (iii) How much time per week can you devote to such work? (iv) What previous research experience do you have? (v) What computer and/or lab skills do you have? (vi) Do you know if you are more interested working in a lab, in computational simulations/modeling, or data analysis? Note that these questions are not meant to winnow down the applicant pool, they simply give the faculty member a better feel for if there can be an appropriate project.