I (Sunny Vagnozzi) am looking to recruit two 2-year postdocs to join my group at the University of Trento in Italy and, while awaiting the standard bureaucratic idle time before the official opening can be posted, I welcome expressions of interest for these positions.

The positions will be funded by a UniTrento Internal Call for Research 2023 grant, through the project DARKTRACK, of which I am PI. The goal of DARKTRACK, itself a lazy acronym of “Searching for Dark Energy off the beaten track”, is to develop new methods to search for dark energy (DE) by going beyond searches for its gravitational interactions via standard cosmological probes. If DE is the manifestation of a new, (ultra-)light degree of freedom, several generic consequences follow (e.g. the possibility of direct couplings to matter and the need for a screening mechanism), offering the exciting opportunity of looking for new signatures of (screened) DE, and DARKTRACK’s purpose is to characterize these.

The positions are connected to the project’s two working packages:

In this context, I particularly welcome expressions of interest from candidates with experience in 1. terrestrial and astrophysical searches for new ultra-light particles (candidates with experience on the topic of “new physics and stars” will be considered of particular interest), and 2. BHs and BH perturbation theory (candidates with experience in BH superradiance will be considered of particular interest). Note: to zeroth order I do NOT expect to hire a cosmologist. Expressions of interest from highly-qualified candidates working in cosmology are nonetheless welcome, but will be treated with lower priority in this search, unless they also have experience in the above topics, or unless I fail to hire a person with the desired experience.

The project will be carried out within the Theoretical Gravitation and Cosmology group at the University of Trento, a dynamic and rapidly growing group, with a wide range of interests including theoretical and observational cosmology, gravitation, black hole physics, and QFT in curved space-time. By the time these positions will start, besides these 2 postdocs the group will include 3 staff members (Profs. Sunny Vagnozzi, Massimiliano Rinaldi, and Luciano Vanzo, in addition to regular group visitors Prof. Michele Liguori and Prof. Sergio Zerbini), another postdoc starting in March 2024, two PhD students, one long-term visiting PhD student, and several Master’s students, offering lots of mentoring opportunities. The successful candidates will be encouraged to collaborate with other leading groups in Europe, Asia, and the USA, with whom I maintain close ties, while also developing their own ideas, and will have the opportunity to join INFN.

The finer details are still being established, but it is likely that the net monthly salary will be of order 1.800,00€ or more, which is very good by Italian standards, and more than sufficient for living in Trento. The position will come with some travel money, and additional travel funds will be available upon joining INFN.

Trento is a charming, medium-sized medieval town located in the heart of the Italian Alps. The town regularly tops rankings for quality of life in Italy. It is surrounded by nature (mountains, lakes, woods,...), and the Trentino Alto-Adige region (https://www.visittrentino.info/en) is home to 2 UNESCO World Heritage sites, while also being a renown skiing site, and boasting a rich culinary and wine-making tradition. The city is well connected to the rest of Italy, as well as Central Europe, with e.g. Milan, Turin, Trieste, Ferrara, Bologna, Padova, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Innsbruck, and Munich all being within no more than a 4-hour train ride or drive. The University of Trento is a young, but highly dynamic and international University, and regularly tops the rankings for medium-sized Universities in Italy, especially within the physical sciences.

If you are interested in these positions, and either hold or are close to completing a PhD, please submit the following material via AcademicJobsOnline at at the eDelivery link https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/edelivery/5197 by November 23, 2023.

Important note: given the notorious difficulty in attracting top candidates to Italy, I consider the cover letter particularly important, and will use it to skim applications to take seriously versus “I am just applying broadly to any position where I could even remotely fit, but I don’t think I’d actually move to [country]” ones (yes, we’ve all been there…). To my eyes, a cover letter I would take seriously explains clearly why you are particularly interested in working on this project with me in Trento, even if it’s only for 2 years at a salary lower than what other places in Europe can offer. I am particularly receptive towards personal (non-scientific) reasons, so if you do want to mention them in the cover letter I do invite you to do so.

If you need further information, please contact me at sunny [dot] vagnozzi [at] unitn [dot] it (unless you’re a bot, of course). If you do, please use the subject line “Application DARKTRACK postdoc your_name your_surname”. Please do NOT send emails with application material or informal expressions of interest related to these positions (that’s what the AJO link is for!). Any personal reasons for being interested in this position should be explained in the cover letter, not by email to me.

November 23, 2023: Expressions of interest deadline

Late November/December: Official application on the University of Trento webpage opens (I will be in touch with particularly interesting candidates to inform them of this)

December: Evaluation of applications and ideally offers made before the end of the year

Deadline for acceptance and tentative starting dates are still being defined at the moment, and do not depend on me. My understanding is that the offers may need to be accepted and the contract signed by the end of 2023, whereas the starting date may be deferred to the first half of 2024 upon mutual agreement, but this information is not yet final.