2025 March 21
The MPC is hiring! We have two positions currently open — one Astronomer and one IT Specialist (i.e., software developer). Both applications close on March 31st.
You should check out the links above for the formal descriptions of the two roles. Less formally, I’d say that there’s a wide variety of work and science that happens at the MPC and there are many different ways that a well-qualified person could contribute to the MPC’s success. I personally came into the MPC with essentially zero experience in minor-planet science (and it’s only been a few months so that’s absolutely still the case) but that hasn’t hampered my ability to get involved, or my level of interest in what I’m doing!
The job ads have to be a bit more neutral, but I’ll take the opportunity to try to sell the MPC a bit. Most narrowly, this is an important and exciting time for the MPC: with Rubin/LSST coming online soon, the there’s about to be a boom in minor-planet science, as well as a five-fold increase in the rate of data coming into the MPC. Just as we start getting used to The Era of Rubin, NASA’s NEO Surveyor will launch and ramp things up even more. All of this will mean that MPC will have a lot of work to do, but our impact and visibility will be higher too.
Of course, in these (cough) “interesting” times it’s hard to feel like you can be at all sure what’s going to happen in a few months, let alone a few years. But for what it’s worth, the funding for MPC (and a lot of that for Rubin and NEO Surveyor) comes from NASA’s planetary defense program; that is, the people who are worrying about city-destroying asteroids. Any scientist who tells you that their funding is totally secure is either delusional or lying, but I feel a lot better about MPC’s situation than some of the alternatives I can think of.
Looking beyond the MPC’s immediate future, I think there’s a ton of opportunity for the MPC to make a much bigger impact on both science, and society more broadly. As I wrote before, I see MPC as a perfect harbinger of where 21st-century science is heading: more and more, your ability to accomplish anything is going to depend critically on your ability to execute technology projects, above all software projects. Historically, MPC hasn’t done a great job of this, but my goal is to complete the task of turning that around. I’d love for MPC to be seen as a leader both scientifically and technically, and my sincere belief is that if you can excel on “both sides of the ball,” you’re going to be wildly more successful than if you’re only strong on one side. If you’re someone that feels the same way, please consider joining us!