PhD position on transiting sub-Neptune planets at the University of Bern (Switzerland) |

The University of Bern invites applications for a PhD opportunity to work on detecting and confirming new Neptune-like planets using various observatories (including TESS, CHEOPS and PLATO), as well as deriving precise occurrence rates for planets transiting bright & nearby stars.

Job Reference: –
Application deadline: 30 November 2025
Starting date: 1 February 2026
Where: University of Bern (UniBern), Hochschulstrasse 6, Bern, Switzerland
Duration of the contract: 4 years
Salary: CHF 50k (gross per year)

Job Tasks

The student will work on transiting exoplanets as part of the SNSF-funded “Exo-Neptune Census” project led by Dr. Hugh Osborn, which aims to perform a demographic survey of the radii, masses and atmospheres of nearby sub-Neptunes to inform planetary formation and evolution. The PhD student’s project will focus on detecting new planets in photometric timeseries from NASA’s TESS telescope as well as potentially Roman and PLATO.

The applicant would also be involved in ongoing observations with ESA’s CHEOPS space telescope, for which Bern is the PI institute. An additional project goal in which the successful applicant could become involved is improving occurrence rates for transiting sub-Neptunes.

A small amount of undergraduate teaching will also be expected during term time.

Profile’s requirements

Masters in an appropriate field;
Excellent oral and written skills in English.

The position will benefit from domain knowledge in observational exoplanetary astronomy (especially past observational experience and analysis of transiting planets), and technical experience in machine learning (esp CNNs), data analysis (esp using python), and Bayesian statistics.

The applicant should demonstrate the ability to succeed in scientific projects, to effectively communicate scientific results, and to work well as part of a team.