Doctoral researcher

We are now looking for a

Doctoral researcher

Are you excited to help find and assess the most promising habitable exoplanets around solar-like magnetically active stars?

Join us to build next‑generation GPU‑accelerated models of stellar dynamos and connect them to exoplanet discovery and space‑weather environments. You will work in Aalto’s High‑Performance Computing Lab within the PEAS (Population of Exoplanets around Active Suns) consortium alongside leading teams in stellar astrophysics, exoplanets, and high-performance computing.

• Home unit: Aalto University, Department of Computer Science (Otaniemi campus, Espoo), High‑Performance Computing Lab (Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Maarit Korpi‑Lagg)
• Consortium collaborators include the University of Helsinki Stellar Astrophysics Group (Dr. Thomas Hackman, Dr. Mikko Tuomi), AI professor Teemu Roos from University of Helsinki, and international partners such as Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).

Your role and goals

You will focus on modelling and interpretation of host stars’ dynamo mechanisms and magnetic activity using fully compressible MHD in global and local frameworks, integrated with physics‑informed machine learning and coronal/wind modelling. Key tasks and responsibilities:

• Develop and implement data‑driven differential rotation constraints in the global dynamo models (e.g., via relaxation terms in the Navier–Stokes equation), calibrating against solar/stellar observations.
• Design, run, and analyse large‑scale global solar/stellar dynamo simulations capable of capturing both small‑scale and large‑scale dynamos in the same model with resolutions requiring at LUMI‑class resources.
• Perform model selection and pruning using observational constraints, extend best‑match runs over multiple stellar activity cycles, and prepare datasets for ML analysis.
• Contribute to coupling global and local radiative MHD models, including GPU acceleration of radiative transfer and high‑cadence data extraction; use ML tools to isolate active region progenitors and study eruptive conditions.
• Interface with SWMF modules (AWSoM/IA) to model stellar coronae and winds driven by dynamo‑generated surface magnetic maps.
• Disseminate results in journals and conferences; contribute to open‑science releases of data and code.

In addition to research work, persons hired are expected to participate in teaching following the standard practices at the department.

Your experience and ambitions

We are looking for a motivated, collaborative researcher with:

Required

• Master’s degree completed before the contract starts (e.g., astrophysics, applied physics, computational science, or closely related).
• Relevant coursework (examples):
  • Computational physics/scientific computing and numerical methods for PDEs
  • High‑performance computing (parallel distributed programming, GPU programming)
  • Astrophysical fluid dynamics and/or magnetohydrodynamics
  • Radiative transfer in astrophysics
  • Machine learning or data analysis for physical sciences
• Strong programming skills (e.g., C/C++/Fortran and Python) and familiarity with reproducible workflows/version control.
• Motivation to pursue independent and collaborative research, and strong communication skills in English.

Preferred

• Demonstrated experience with MHD or fluid‑dynamics solvers and analysis of large‑scale simulations; experience on GPUs is a plus.
• Experience with physics‑informed ML for scientific data
• Familiarity with SWMF-like models for stellar coronae and wind modelling.

What we offer

We will offer you an excellent and unique research environment in the capital region of Helsinki: our consortium conducts top-notch work in the intersection of astrophysics, data, and computer science. This will give you a chance to develop a unique set of skills appreciated both in academia and industry. You will have access to a unique combination of HPC resources: Aalto Triton cluster (versatile Tier-2 system for testing, porting, and benchmarking); national CSC supercomputers (e.g. Roihu, Tier-1 systems for medium-level production runs); EuroHPC LUMI (Tier-0, for high-duty production); EuroHPC PRACE competed resources.

The position belongs to the Aalto career system and the selected person will be appointed for a two-year fixed term appointment with an option for two-year renewal.

The starting salary for the position is 3168,20 EUR per month. In addition to the salary, the contract includes occupational health benefits, and Finland has a comprehensive social security system. The annual total workload of research and teaching staff at Aalto University is 1 612 hours. The position is located at the Aalto University Otaniemi campus.