Postdoctoral Fellows Program

Purpose
Knowledge of actinide science continues to be essential to the U.S. and central to the mission of the NNSA, including national defense, energy security, nuclear nonproliferation, environmental restoration, and radioactive waste management. Seaborg Institute Postdoctoral Fellows are supported to perform experimental, theoretical, or modeling research that underlies missions in stockpile stewardship, nuclear energy and safeguards, nonproliferation and forensics, environmental restoration and transport, biological interactions, and radioactive waste management. These areas are strategic for the Laboratory and include supporting the LANL "plutonium center of excellence" and the Plutonium Science and Research Strategy. Noting that "actinides" are more than just plutonium, and that the other light actinides are exceptionally important for the wide range of mission activities at the Laboratory, a balance will be maintained among the many research areas.

Application Process & Eligibility
Successful candidates must be approved for division funding by the LANL postdoctoral program (http://int.lanl.gov/science/postdocs/), and have a clearly defined research proposal that supports new actinide science at the single investigator or small-team level, described in a proposal of approximately one page. This proposal, a short nomination memo from the mentor, and a copy of a complete LANL postdoctoral application package constitute the Seaborg Postdoctoral Fellow application. Both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens are eligible. The program will provide 0.5 FTE support for two years. Funding is subject to all LDRD augmentation rules.

It is the sponsor's responsibility to ensure that each package:

• contains a one page research proposal
  
• a short nomination memo from the mentor
  
• a copy of a complete LANL postdoctoral application package
  
• contains no PII
  
• is submitted by the deadline
  
• provides the anticipated start date of the candidate

Please submit the application package to Susan Ramsay at ramsay@lanl.gov or MS E532 by January 20, 2012.

Selection Process
A selection committee will judge applications on academic excellence and relevance of the candidate's proposed research to fundamental actinide science. The selection committee is chosen by the Seaborg Institute executive team.

Reporting Requirements
The Fellow will be required to participate in the Actinide Science seminar series, and give one scientific lecture on actinide science in this series. Publications resulting from Seaborg sponsorship should acknowledge financial support from the Institute, and the Fellow will be required to provide a list of publications and presentations resulting from Seaborg support on an annual basis. Upon completion of the appointment, the Fellow will be required to submit a short report on research progress, publications, presentations, and future employment status.