Faculty Positions in Science and Engineering: Arizona State University

In July 2006, Arizona State University launched the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) as part of a university-wide initiative in transdisciplinary research and education. SESE faculty are explicitly organizing their research efforts around “grand challenges” in the earth and space sciences, such as:

• Understanding the origin of life, the nature of biological evolution, and the distribution of life in the universe;
• Understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars, and planetary systems;
• Understanding the chemical, physical, and biological process interactions that define the evolution of Earth and similar planets;
• Understanding the co-evolution of Earth and human societies; and
• Designing and implementing optimal strategies for the human and robotic exploration of space.

Success in these endeavors will demand the effective integration of disciplines such as astronomy, astrophysics, biogeochemistry, evolutionary and organismic biology, climate science, geochemistry, geology, geophysics, oceanography, and public policy. Importantly, meeting these challenges requires a fusion of science with “collaborative engineering”, which we define for our purposes simply as the integration of design and informatics theories from many branches of engineering to facilitate scientific exploration and research on Earth and beyond.

Over the next four years, the School will be hiring a large number of faculty in order to build its capacity for such transdisciplinary research and education. We are now accepting applications from creative researchers and inspired educators as part of the first phase in this process.

For more information: http://sese.asu.edu/faculty_positions.php [Source: NAI Newsletter]