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Employment Potential

While a PhD in instrumentation or a project with an instrumentation component, may not lead to the same research output (as measured in peer-reviewed papers), a technology-related project is likely to provide you with skills that are highly valuable in the workplace. Because industry and government labs are increasingly involved in large astronomy instrumentation projects, you may have the opportunity go from PhD/graduate school or postdoc to a non-academic job and keep working on the same project. Your astronomy background and technical expertise are a considerable advantage for non-academic positions working on large astronomy projects.

Many university departments do also have members of their physics and astronomy faculty leading instrumentation research and development. These positions provide a lot of opportunity to work with, mentor and train junior scientists, build a group, be part of a stimulating academic environment, and form cross-disciplinary links with other fields. Conversely, you’ll be subject to the same demands as your faculty colleagues: securing grant funding for equipment and salaries of your group members, teaching, committee memebrships, presenting at conferences, and publishing in peer-reviewed journals. Note that because laboratory research relies on hardware, running a successful instrumentation research group can require more funding than other areas of research.

You’ll find a list of university departments with a strong instrumentation presence in the Resources section of these pages. Academic and observatory jobs typically get advertised on the AAS job register.

Where are the jobs?

The range of employers who would hire graduates or PhDs with astronomy instrumentation experience is very broad. Anywhere instruments are built or operated is a potential employer if you have a Masters or PhD in astronomy instrumentation. This includes: