Job Description
Job Title: Research Associate (LZ experiment)
Posting Start Date: 19/08/2025
Job Id: 1437
School/Department: Mathematical & Physical Sciences
Work Arrangement: Full Time (On site)
Contract Type: Fixed-term
Salary per annum (£): £38,784.00
Closing Date: 16/09/2025
The University of Sheffield is a remarkable place to work. Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Their diverse backgrounds, abilities and beliefs make Sheffield a world-class university.
We offer a fantastic range of benefits including a highly competitive annual leave entitlement (with the ability to purchase more), a generous pensions scheme, flexible working opportunities, a commitment to your development and wellbeing, a wide range of retail discounts, and much more.
The Particle Physics and Particle Astrophysics group at the University of Sheffield is seeking to recruit an enthusiastic post-doctoral research associate to work with Prof. Dan Tovey and Dr. Adam Brown on the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) liquid xenon dark matter search experiment at SURF in South Dakota. LZ is currently the world’s most sensitive dark matter experiment. The post-holder will analyse LZ data to search for low energy nuclear recoil signals for WIMP dark matter, and also contribute to the maintenance, operation and calibration of the experiment. Experience of estimation and modelling of backgrounds to low energy nuclear recoil signals would be an advantage. The post-holder will also be expected to contribute to the production of Monte Carlo simulation samples for the experiment. The post is available from 1 October 2025 for a duration of 6 months initially, however it is expected that awarded funding will soon be released by STFC to extend the post by a further 18 months (24 months total). Further extensions are subject to future STFC Consolidated Grant funding bids.

• Contribute effectively to the analysis of data from the LZ experiment, with a focus on the search for low energy nuclear recoil signals of WIMP dark matter.
• Contribute to the maintenance, operation and calibration of the LZ experiment.
• Contribute to the estimation and modelling of backgrounds in the LZ experiment.
• Contribute to the production of Monte Carlo background simulations for LZ.
• Prepare papers for journals/presentations in-house, in-collaboration or at national/international conferences or seminars to disseminate research findings.
• Write supporting documents to contribute to and support the work of the research group
• Read academic papers, journals and textbooks to keep abreast of developments.
• Plan for specific aspects of research programmes.
• If given a particular hypothesis to examine, plan for your own contribution up to three months ahead, incorporating issues such as the availability of resources, deadlines, project milestones and overall research aims.
• Coordinate and liaise with other members of the research group over work progress. Supervise research team/activities if required.
• Continuously monitor and check results. The unpredictability of research means that daily planning needs to accommodate new developments.
• Plan several months in advance to meet deadlines for journal publications and to prepare presentations and papers for collaboration meetings and conferences.
• Carry out other duties, commensurate with the grade and remit of the post.