SKA Project: Young Professionals Development Programme

The Young Professionals Development Programme (YPDP) gives academically excellent science and engineering graduates and postgraduates the opportunity to work for the the South African SKA Project (SKA SA). The YPDP is currently open for applications from suitably qualified candidates from South Africa. The deadline for application is 1 May 2015.

RequirementsOnly South African citizens will be considered for the YPDP programme having one of the following academic qualifications:

• Currently in final year of a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic Engineering
• Currently in final semester of National Diploma in Electronic Engineering
• Currently completing a Bachelor of Technology in Electronic Engineering
• Currently in final year of a Bachelor of Science with Mathematics and Physics as majors, or with Mathematics and Computer Science as majors
• Currently completing a Bachelor of Science Honours in Astronomy / Astrophysics, or in Computer Science
• Currently in second and final year of a Masters Degree in Electronic Engineering or Observational Radio Astronomy
• In final year of Masters Degree of Technology in Electronics
• Currently in third and final year of a Doctoral Degree in Electronic Engineering or Observational Radio Astronomy

Young Professionals (YPs) employed by the SKA SA will be involved in exciting research work, including:

• Conducting early science observations with MeerKAT and SKA
• Operating KAT-7 and MeerKAT
• Trouble-shooting astronomy systems
• Processing large volumes of data and developing data analysis tools
• Assisting with physical configuration audits, creating equipment structures and analysing reliability and failure of systems
• Port signal processing algorithms to accelerators such as GPUs
• Using LLVM and Python for high performance computing and language virtualisation
• Developing efficient GPU processing using Python
• Developing power efficient computing using alternate compute architectures such as ARM and Power
• Designing high sensitivity cryogenically cooled radio receivers
• Developing solutions for high-speed digitization of radio frequency signals, reconfigurable computing, supercomputing and machine learning, data transport and storage, calibration and imaging of radio sources, systems control and monitoring and digital signal processing for radio astronomy

How to apply

Applications close on 1 May 2015. Click here to apply