Carleton College · 20 hours ago
Technical Assistant in Physics and Astronomy and Research Facilitator for the Sciences
Carleton College Campus
Full-time
Onsite
Mid Level
$67K/yr - $69K/yr
3+ years expCarleton College is a private liberal arts college located in Northfield, Minnesota. They are seeking a Technical Assistant in Physics and Astronomy and Research Facilitator for the Sciences to provide Unix support for faculty and students in STEM, manage computational resources, and facilitate research using the College’s high performance computing cluster.
Higher Education
Responsibilities
Manage and maintain Physics and Astronomy instrumentation computers, including specifying and purchasing replacements when necessary
Assist Physics/Astronomy students, faculty, and staff with computer applications for classes, labs, and senior capstone projects (known internally as “comps”)
Manage and maintain Physics/Astronomy curricular lab computers, including collaborating with ITS in the design and testing of the base image, and installing software to customize the base computer images
Inform impacted faculty when campus-wide technology changes impact Physics, Astronomy, and Chemistry IT and computer needs
Be readily available on lab days during academic terms (Tuesdays and Thursdays) to support faculty and students when computer support is needed during lab time. Exceptions can be made in consultation with the Physics and Astronomy Department Chair, with advance notice whenever feasible
Stay apprised of current physics laboratory equipment and software compatibility to advise of future equipment upgrades
Manage and maintain computational resources used for Physics/Astronomy research, including administration of servers, supporting redundancy and backups, and configuration of software
Support, maintain, and manage Physics, Astronomy, and Chemistry (Mac, Windows, and Linux) desktop computers used for research, including updating, adding/deleting accounts, monitoring services, writing routines, etc. as needed
Work closely and collaboratively with ITS, and in particular with the staff in the Systems and Infrastructure Group (SIG), to manage and maintain the cluster hardware and software
Support faculty and students (in any department, but primarily in STEM) who are using Unix environments, consistent with campus policies and standards for such environments
Document in a clear and accurate way support and maintenance work performed on all computers supported by this position using the established ITS documentation framework
Facilitate faculty and research students (in any department, but primarily in STEM) learning about the College’s high performance computing cluster, including visiting classes to share information about its capacity and availability and providing consultations with faculty and research students
Support faculty and research students who are using the cluster, including by maintaining (and writing, when needed) cluster documentation and providing onboarding training
Provide advice and support for data management practices, including understanding the full range of options for storing research data
Provide technical support to end users for external high performance computing resources such as ACCESS, Open Science Grid (OSG), and cloud services
Provide technical support for the geothermal distributed temperature sensing (DTS) data collection system by: specifying, acquiring, and maintaining the Windows PC that talks to the DTS unit in consultation with ITS; making sure DTS is in good working order, converting and migrating the data sets generated by the DTS to a form useable by Carleton consumers
Participate in the “embedded staff” cohort of technology-related positions across campus, as one way of staying informed about ITS projects and practices and a way to bring ideas to ITS and other technologists across campus
Stay informed of changes to information security trends and maintain a close collaboration with Carleton’s Information Security Officer to ensure that all network-based services comply with all campus security practices
Work collaboratively with ITS when developing solutions to support Physics, Astronomy, and Chemistry related technology issues according to the Service Level Agreement between Physics and Astronomy and ITS
Stay informed of new developments and changes in scientific computing
Qualification
Required
Ability to interact effectively with students, faculty, and staff
Bachelor's degree in a STEM field or a minimum of three years professional experience providing software/hardware support in a networked environment
A working knowledge of MacOS, Windows, Linux operating systems, including the installation and/or building of packages written in Python, C, and C++ to support faculty research
Must have the ability to understand and follow written and oral work instructions, operations, safety procedures, and hazardous labels
Preferred
Experience with a physics lab environment
Experience with virtual machine (VM) management
Experience coding in at least one language, such as Python or C++, and experience shell scripting
Ability to learn other programming languages as necessary to support software packages related to faculty research
Benefits
A generous 403(b) retirement plan with a 10% employer contribution and 2% employee contribution.
Medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance.
Paid time-off, including 25 annual leave days, 8 paid holidays, and extra days at the end of the calendar year to make a continuous week off before New Year’s.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for all employees.
A dependent tuition program after six years of service.
Company
Carleton College
Carleton College is a school in Northfield.
201-500 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Carleton College has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (10)
2024 (19)
2023 (8)
2022 (8)
2021 (12)
2020 (1)
Funding
Current Stage
Growth StageTotal Funding
$0.15MKey Investors
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
2019-02-26Grant· $0.15M
Leadership Team
Dan Stephans
Director of Systems and Infrastructure
Kelsey Deshler
Chief Investment Officer
Recent News
2025-04-30
2025-03-27
Twin Cities Business
2024-11-26
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