Postdoctoral Positions in Gravitational-Wave Science

About the role

The Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity (ACR) department at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Potsdam works across the full chain of gravitational‑wave astronomy, from first‑principles modeling of strong‑field gravity and numerical relativity to the analysis and interpretation of data from current detectors (LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA) and future observatories (Einstein Telescope, Cosmic Explorer, LISA). The department hosts about 45 scientists, including three permanent research group leaders (Jonathan Gair, Harald Pfeiffer, Jan Steinhoff), and maintains close ties with the University of Maryland, Humboldt University of Berlin, and the University of Potsdam. Computing resources comprise the Urania cluster (~6,050 cores), the Hypatia high‑throughput cluster (~12,000 cores), and two GPU servers (Saraswati and Lakshmi) each with eight NVIDIA A100 GPUs, all presently being extended. The department participates in the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) Collaboration, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Einstein Telescope Collaboration, the LISA Consortium, and leads waveform generation and global‑fit deep analysis for the LISA Distributed Data Processing Centre.

Qualifications

• Expertise in analytical modeling of gravitational dynamics and radiation (effective field theory, post‑Newtonian/post‑Minkowskian expansions, gravitational self‑force, black‑hole perturbation theory, effective‑one‑