Research Assistant / PDRA.

The Department of Physics at Durham University is one of the leading UK Physics departments with an outstanding reputation for excellence in teaching, research and employability of our students. In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise of 2021, the Department had 96% of publications rated as 3*/4*. The Department is committed to advancing equality and we aim to ensure that our culture is inclusive, and that our systems support flexible and family-friendly working, as recognised by our Juno Champion and Athena SWAN Silver awards. We recognise and value the benefits of diversity throughout our staff and students.

Durham University hosts one of Europe's largest and most active research groups working in the fields of observational and theoretical extragalactic astronomy, cosmology, and instrumentation. Currently we have about 35 permanent members of academic staff, around 100 postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students, and several research-active emeritus staff. We have access to all UK national observing facilities, including ESO, ALMA and ESA, and membership of the KMOS, NuSTAR, XRISM LOFAR, PAUS, MOONs and IXPE teams. Durham is also a partner in the DESI, 4MOST, WEAVE, Euclid, LSST, JCMT, HARMONI, and e-MERLIN collaborations and surveys. We are part of the Virgo Consortium and host extensive supercomputing resources, including the 'Cosmology Machine', some of which is part of the DiRAC national supercomputing facility.

We invite applications for a Research Assistant position, to start in October 2026, with an initial period of 2 years and the possibility of further extension. The post is funded by the ERC Consolidator Grant project X-MAPS and will be supervised by Dr Adam Ingram, who will be moving to Durham University in June 2026. The successful candidate will join thriving research teams within the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy (CEA) at Durham, which is a leading group in observational astrophysics with expertise in compact objects, active galactic nuclei, galaxies and large-scale structure.

The role will contribute to the goals of the X-MAPS project, which aims to unify fast X-ray timing and X-ray polarimetry techniques to improve our understanding of black hole X-ray binaries and measure black hole fundamental properties. Specific research projects include training neural networks to act as fast drop-in replacements for advanced X-ray timing and polarisation models (e.g. the X-ray reverberation mapping code RELTRANS), and applying advanced Fourier timing techniques to search for rapid spectral and polarimetric variability in the X-ray signal from black hole X-ray binaries. We are therefore searching for candidates with experience in theoretical modelling of accreting black holes and/or in observational stochastic X-ray timing and polarimetric analysis.