Postdoc Position at ICEN - UNAP

The Instituto de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (ICEN) at Universidad Arturo Prat, Iquique, Chile, is inviting young researchers to be considered for the FONDECYT Postdoctoral grant 2026.

The application involves two stages: an internal selection by the faculty members at ICEN and an external review process driven by the funding agency in Chile, ANID (see https://anid.cl/concursos/concurso-fondecyt-de-postdoctorado-2026/). The position is for 2-3 years and the successful candidate should begin during 2026. Ph.D. degree of the candidate must be obtained no more than four years before the application deadline (expected by May 2025).

The group consists of nine faculty members (Luis Avilés, José Díaz, Oscar Fuentealba, Nelson Merino, Diego Molina-Peñafiel, Patricio Salgado, Per Sundell, David Tempo, and Omar Valdivia) with research interests in a wide gamut of aspects, among which are renormalization and asymptotic charges in gravity, non-relativistic/ultra-relativistic limits of General Relativity and non-Lorentzian geometries, higher spin gravity, higher symmetries, gauge theories of gravitation, quantization of gauge systems, modified gravity theories in different dimensions, exact and numerical solutions, cosmological models, asymptotic symmetries and Lie-algebra expansions.

The salary is competitive by Chilean standards (~27,000 USD/year after 13% of taxes) and a health insurance of ~600 USD/year will be provided. The fellowship's budget includes installation expenses (~3000 USD) and operating costs (~4500 USD/year) that can be used for traveling, computational equipment, hire casual staff, etc. Iquique is a northern city on the pacific coast of Chile with a population of ~200,000, high quality of life, and excellent weather (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuEy8FDzWEI).

The institute started a Masters program in Theoretical Physics in 2021 and a PhD program in 2024. Successful applicants will not have mandatory teaching duties. They are expected to interact and collaborate with ICEN faculty members and graduate students.

Applicants should submit their CV with a list of publications, a brief one-page description of the potential project, and at least two recommendation letters to jtempo@unap.cl and luaviles@unap.cl before April 4th, 2025 (early submission is encouraged). The selected candidates will be contacted within 5 days after the deadline. Afterwards, a detailed project (10 pages maximum) and other documents will be asked for the second stage, whose deadline will be announced later.