Under the MOU between the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) and the Department of Astronomy of the Universidad de Chile (UChile) a program of joint postdoctoral fellowships will be established. The fellowship will take the name of Australis, a Latin word referring to the south, which is meant to symbolize the astronomical research in the Southern Hemisphere that the ATNF/UChile Australis Fellow will carry out.

The Australis Fellow will hold a PhD in astronomy and will work on a project led jointly by staff astronomers from both UChile and ATNF. The duration of the Fellowship will be for two years with the possibility of a one-year extension. One year of the Fellowship will be hosted at the Department of Astronomy at UChile in Santiago, Chile and the other year will hosted at the ATNF Headquarters in Sydney, Australia.

The team of ATNF/UChile astronomers will propose a project for a Fellow to work on. A panel made up of astronomers from ATNF and UChile will meet and review project proposals on a regular basis. The Australis Fellow will be able to apply as Principle Investigator for Chilean time on all telescopes in Chile for the duration of the Fellowship.

A call for applicants for the first Australis Fellowship (2008) is currently open. For more information contact Kate Brooks (Kate Brooks @ csiro.au).

Link to MOU between ATNF and UChile.