Available Positions
The Department of Physics and Astronomy at Colgate University invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position in experimental physics to begin in the fall semester of 2025. The successful candidate will be part of a department of 11 tenured and tenure-track faculty that averages over 25 graduates per year, approximately half of whom identify as people of color. Faculty teach undergraduate physics courses at all levels and are expected to participate in all-university programs, including the Liberal Arts Core Curriculum. Preference will be given to candidates who will engage students in laboratory-based on-campus physics research.
Colgate is a highly selective liberal arts university of 3,200 students situated in central New York state. Our faculty are committed to excellence in both teaching and scholarship, engaging in successful research that receives support from both external and internal funding sources. Start-up funding will be provided. Further information about the Department of Physics and Astronomy can be found here.
Applicants should submit a cover letter (1-2 pages), a curriculum vitae, and separate statements of teaching philosophy and research interests. The teaching statement should include a thoughtful explanation of how candidates will create an inclusive and accessible learning and research environment that supports participation of students with a wide range of identities, backgrounds, and perspectives. Guidance on writing these statements can be found here. Candidates should submit the names and email addresses of three references willing to write letters on their behalf and should encourage them to upload the letters at the time of application. At least one person providing a recommendation should be able to address the candidate’s teaching qualifications, and at least one should be very familiar with the candidate’s research experience and potential for supervising students in undergraduate research. Completion of a Ph.D. in physics or a related field is expected prior to or shortly after the date of hire; teaching and postdoctoral research experiences are desirable. Applications must be submitted through Interfolio. Our review of applications will begin September 27, 2024.
The salary range for the position is $92,300 to $96,300. Applicants with dual-career considerations can find postings of other employment opportunities at Colgate and at other institutions of higher education in upstate New York at Upstate NY HERC Jobs.
Campus Crime Reporting and Statistics
The Department of Campus Safety at Colgate University will provide upon request a copy of Colgate’s Annual Security and Fire Safety Report. This report includes statistics as reported to the United States Department of Education for the previous three years concerning reported: 1. crimes that occurred on-campus; in certain off-campus buildings or property owned or controlled by Colgate University; and on public property within, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from, the campus and 2. fires that occurred in student housing facilities. The report also includes institutional policies concerning campus security and fire safety, such as policies concerning sexual assault, life safety systems, and other related matters. You may access the report from the Clery Compliance web page. Printed copies of this report may be obtained upon request from the Department of Campus Safety via e-mail at cusafety@colgate.edu.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Policy Statement
It is the policy of Colgate University not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of their race, color, creed, religion, age, sex, pregnancy, national origin, marital status, disability, protected Veterans status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, being or having been victims of domestic violence or stalking, familial status, or any other categories covered by law. Colgate is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Candidates with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.
We seek a postdoctoral researcher for a 2-year position at Colgate University to work on optical physics research with complex light. The position is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. We are interested in an experimental researcher with a Ph.D in Physics, Optics, or Engineering. We prefer candidates with experience in optics, with preference given to those familiar with complex-light beams and associated hardware, such as spatial light modulators and parametric down-conversion. Available facilities at Colgate include numerous types of lasers, spatial light modulators, and other optical hardware, including 6 optical tables set up with ongoing classical and quantal studies.
The primary duties of this position involve designing and performing experiments on complex-light problems. Current ones include laboratory astrophysics studies of gravitational lensing, creating 3-d fields of spatially-variable polarization for communication, and quantum optics studies in imaging and metrology with entangled photons. This work will be done in collaboration with Prof. Enrique “Kiko” Galvez and Colgate University undergraduates. For those interested in eventually moving on to an academic position, the option exists to supervise undergraduate students in research and to be mentored in excellence in teaching within the curriculum at Colgate.
Colgate is a highly-selective liberal arts university of 3,200 students situated in the picturesque village of Hamilton, in central New York. Our faculty are committed to excellence in both teaching and scholarship. The physics and astronomy department has 11 tenure-track faculty members housed in the new Ho Science Center, which is configured to facilitate interdisciplinary teaching and research. The department averages over 25 graduates per year. Facilities include well-equipped research laboratories in quantum and optical physics, condensed matter physics, superconducting electronics, computational physics, biophysics, planetary science, and observational astronomy. Please visit our website for information regarding our facilities, programs and faculty expertise.
Candidates should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae (CV) and a short description of research experience that emphasizes work in optical physics research. The CV should include research experience, publications, and the names of two individuals who have agreed to submit letters of recommendation. Candidates should also arrange for letters from those individuals to be uploaded to Interfolio at apply.interfolio.com/153898 by the deadline below. Letters should primarily address research, speaking to the candidate’s prior accomplishments and future potential. Colgate strives to be a community that is supportive of diverse perspectives and identities. In the cover letter, all applications should speak directly to the candidate’s ability to work effectively with colleagues and students across a wide range of identities and backgrounds.
For full consideration, applications should be uploaded to by November 1, 2024; review of applications will continue until the position is filled. Email inquiries to Enrique Galvez (egalvez@colgate.edu) are welcome.
Campus Crime Reporting and Statistics
The Department of Campus Safety at Colgate University will provide upon request a copy of Colgate’s Annual Security and Fire Safety Report. This report includes statistics as reported to the United States Department of Education for the previous three years concerning reported: 1. crimes that occurred on-campus; in certain off-campus buildings or property owned or controlled by Colgate University; and on public property within, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from, the campus and 2. fires that occurred in student housing facilities. The report also includes institutional policies concerning campus security and fire safety, such as policies concerning sexual assault, life safety systems, and other related matters. You may access the report from the Clery Compliance web page here. Printed copies of this report may be obtained upon request from the Department of Campus Safety via e-mail at cusafety@colgate.edu.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Policy Statement
It is the policy of Colgate University not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of their race, color, creed, religion, age, sex, pregnancy, national origin, marital status, disability, protected Veterans status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, being or having been victims of domestic violence or stalking, familial status, or any other categories covered by law. Colgate is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Candidates with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.
Guidance for Applicants to Faculty Positions
When we read your application, we are looking for evidence that you will be successful as a teacher and researcher at Colgate University. Here’s some guidance on what makes strong teaching, research, and diversity statements.
Teaching Statement
We’re looking for evidence that you’ve thought deeply about teaching and are committed to being a successful teacher and mentor at a four-year college who will create an inclusive classroom and research environment. There are many forms that this evidence can take. Typically your statement will be 1 – 3 pages. Some things that could be included are:
- Describe any teaching experience you’ve had. What did you do that you were proud of? What did you learn from the experience, and what would you do differently in the future? How would that teaching be similar to or different from your teaching at Colgate?
- What have you learned about teaching, outside of direct experience as a teacher? What effective instructional practices did you observe when you were a student? What have you learned by reading the science education literature? What are you particularly interested in trying at Colgate?
- Students arrive in our classrooms and research groups with a wide range of backgrounds, skills, assumptions, goals, and needs. How will you address this range of needs and help all students feel included?
- What are your goals for students? You might pick a course and explain what you hope students will take out of it. In addition to specific content mastery, what else do you want your students to gain from the course? How will you design your teaching of the course to make that happen?
- What courses would you feel best prepared to teach? In addition to teaching in physics and astronomy, we expect our faculty to teach courses to a general audience of students in our liberal arts curriculum. Most scientists teach in the Scientific Perspectives component, where the main objective is to teach students about the scientific process and how science interacts with society. What ideas do you have for teaching in this program?
You cannot include all this information in a statement of reasonable length, so use that freedom to write about whatever you care about the most, and also feel free to write about things that are important to you, but that we have not remembered to include in this list. (But do be sure to include some clear ideas about how you will teach our diverse student body.)
One note: We do not normally read student evaluations from your previous teaching, but if there are any that particularly illustrate what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s acceptable to quote them in your statement.
Research Statement
We expect that, beyond being an effective teacher, you will also contribute to knowledge and involve students in the research process. Your statement should convince us that you have chosen an exciting area of research and have thought of projects that can be accomplished in an undergraduate environment. Typically your statement will be 2 - 3 pages.
Please remember that while some of us may work in fields of research adjacent to your own, others will be working in completely different areas in physics or astronomy. Aim to convince all of us that your field of research is promising.
We’d like to know what your lab will look like. Please make clear the type of equipment you will need and the timeline for setting it up. We do have start- up funds available, and we hope to be able to supply all the resources needed for you to be successful, but our funds are not unlimited. In case there is some question about whether your plans are feasible at Colgate, it may be helpful to provide budgetary information: “I could start with apparatus X that would cost about $Y, along with $Z for general supplies. If more funds are available, I would also purchase V at a cost of $W, but this could also be acquired through future grant funding from Q source.” Very rough numbers, even +/-50%, are acceptable here.
Let us know how undergraduates can contribute to and learn from your research. All our students complete senior research projects, and many work in our labs for summers and during the academic year. Your statement should give us a general understanding of the sorts of student projects you might mentor. If your work will require collaboration, then describing existing collaborations or telling us how you will initiate them will help us see that you have the resources necessary to complete your research.
- Todd Springer- Associate Teaching Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology
- Etienne Gagnon- Associate Professor of Physics, Franklin & Marshall College
- Kurt Andresen- Professor of Physics, Gettysburg College
- Scott Lacey- Medical Physicist, Willamette Valley Cancer Institute
- Walter Tangarife- Assistant Professor of Physics, Loyola University
- Catherine Herne- Associate Professor of Physics, SUNY New Paltz
- Liang Niesternski, Associate Professor of Physics, Western New England University