Current Postdoctoral Fellowships and Research Opportunities

We have several department-sponsored postdoctoral positions; availability of funds allows us to support one or two people in these positions at any given time.  They are:

  • Lyman Spitzer, Jr. Fellowship:
    The Lyman Spitzer Jr. Postdoctoral Fellowship, named for the chair of the department from 1947 to 1979, is given to top theoretical postdoctoral astronomers.  
     
  • Henry Norris Russell Fellowship:
    The Henry Norris Russell Postdoctoral Fellowship, named for the Chair of the Department for much of the first half of the 20th Century, is awarded to highly promising observational researchers.
     
  • Carnegie-Princeton Joint Fellowship:
    The Carnegie-Princeton Joint Postdoctoral Fellowship is a four year fellowship, in which the researcher spends roughly half the time at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena, California, and half the time at Princeton. They are given access to all observational facilities at both institutions for the full term of the joint position.
     
  • Princeton/Flatiron Fellowship:
    The Princeton/Flatiron Fellowship is a four-year fellowship emphasizing computationally novel and intensive astrophysics, including analysis of large data sets. Fellows divide their time between the Princeton Astrophysical Sciences Department and the Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) at the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute in New York City. 
     
  • Future Faculty in the Physical Sciences Fellowship:
    The Future Faculty in the Physical Sciences (FFPS) Fellowship is a three-year fellowship coordinated among the departments of Physics, Geosciences, and Astrophysical Sciences and aims to appoint a cohort of 1-2 Fellows per discipline per year. FFPS seeks excellent young scientists who are dedicated to increasing the representation of historically underrepresented groups in the physical sciences.

These postdocs are typically for three years (four years in the case of the Carnegie-Princeton and Princeton/Flatiron), although this can be extended for those coming with external sources of funds (such as NHFP or NSF Fellowships).

Many individual professors and research groups sponsor postdoctoral researchers, and a number of postdocs come on various external fellowships.

Current postdoctoral positions advertised in the Department are listed on our Jobs page.