Job openings

We currently have no posted job openings. However, if, after looking over our site, you are interested in working with us, take a look at the list of activities below. If you believe you are well qualified to carry out some these activities, feel free to inquire about our future needs.

General Employment Opportunities

Research

Graduate students: We typically take on one or two graduate students each year, usually during the Spring and Summer. The graduate students in our group come from Physics, Applied Physics, and Chemistry. For an idea of anticipated openings, see the Research Opportunities Form on file in the Physics Department Office. Our hiring of new graduate students is usually limited by financial considerations; there are plenty of good ideas for experiments, but not always enough funds to support expanding the group.

Requirements: You must have been admitted to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Please do not send e-mail to us to inquire about doing graduate work at Harvard before having been admitted; instead, consult the GSAS and DEAS websites for information on how to be admitted to the Ph.D. program at Harvard.

Procedure: Join us for lunch or stop by for our group seminars.

 

Postdoctoral Research Fellows: On average, we have two or three postdoctoral Research Fellows in the group. If no job openings are posted at the top of this page, then we have no uncommitted funding to support additional postdocs. However, there are always openings in our group for qualified people with external funding -- we have many exciting new projects to work on and not enough people to carry out all the work.

Requirements: A Ph.D. degree (and an option for external funding if no opening is posted).

Procedure: Contact Eric Mazur.

 

Undergraduates: During the academic year, we typically have two to three undergraduates involved in our experiments, often for Physics 90r course credit. Successful undergraduates may continue to work in our group for pay or for work leading up to a senior thesis. Additional paid opportunities for undergraduates exist in our education-related projects (see programming, design, and data analysis, below). During the summer, we often take on undergraduate researchers through the Research Experience for Undergraduates program. Research opportunities are available in any of our listed research areas. Time-commitments are fairly flexible.

Requirements: No formal requirements. Some lab experience or knowledge of electronics or programming desirable.

Procedure: Contact Eric Mazur.

 

Visitors: Occasionally, faculty from other universities are affiliated with our group for periods ranging from three months to a year, or even more. Visiting faculty generally work on one of our research projects, on related research, or on writing. Visitors can be appointed as Research Associate (requiring a minimum appointment of three months), providing an official Harvard affiliation with library access and a number of other priviliges, but are usually unsupported.

Requirements: A Ph.D. degree; three-months minimum stay.

Procedure: Contact Eric Mazur.

 

High school students: A number of talented high school students have joined our research group during the school year and summer. Typical projects include developing lab automation and data acquisition software, assisting with day-to-day running of experiments, and acquiring data.

Requirements: No formal requirements. Some knowledge of computers or electronics desirable.

Procedure: Contact Eric Mazur.

Programming

We employ a number of part-time undergraduate programmers with Project Galileo, our NSF-funded web server of resources for innovative strategies in science education. Resources are made available to instructors through web pages that are dynamically constructed from an SQL database. Responsibilities include SQL database programming, building dynamic web pages out of database content, webserver maintenance, and general programming.

Requirements: Experience with databases (preferably SQL), and some web-based programming. The specific programming environment we use can be learned on the job.

Procedure: Contact Eric Mazur.

We also employ part-time undergraduates doing html page construction and graphic design for the numerous web sites maintained by our group.

Requirements: Experience in html coding, graphic design, and digital image manipulation.

Procedure: Contact Eric Mazur.

Several of our education projects involve managing large amounts of statistical data on student performance.

Requirements: Familiarity with basic statistics, and facility with spreadsheets and relational databases; knowledge of presentation and graphing programs desirable but not required.

Procedure: Contact Eric Mazur.