Faculty position openings at the School of Physics Zhejiang University, P. R. China (NEW)

The School of Physics at Zhejiang University is seeking to recruit a number of candidates over the next ten years to fill more than 70 faculty positions at all levels, in all subfields of experimental & theoretical physics. These include:

— Group leader: Successful candidates should have internationally recognized research accomplishments and proven leadership experience. They are expected to coordinate research programs and develop new directions for interdisciplinary research;

— Tenured position: Successful candidates should have an outstanding record of research accomplishments. They are expected to develop an independent research program, show strong leadership abilities and have an accomplished academic career;

— Tenure-track position: Successful candidates should possess an excellent record of research accomplishments, have a very strong background and show great potential for future development.

Successful applicants are also expected to develop an innovative research program and are requested to teach at graduate and/or undergraduate levels. Qualified applicants are strongly encouraged to submit their applications electronically, including the following materials in PDF format to the Human Resources Officer of the School, Ms. Youxiu Zheng, at phyac@zju.edu.cn:

— A comprehensive CV including major publications;

— A research statement including research achievements and a research plan with the requirements for the research platform and startup grant.

— A statement of teaching experience and capabilities;

Interviews are arranged either individually for group leaders and tenured positions, or twice per year for tenure-track positions. The positions remain open until they are filled.

In contrast to the typical approaches of other Chinese universities, the School provides each successful candidate professional assistance in establishing a research group and preparing grant applications, high-quality teaching training, access to common research facilities, etc, which will greatly enable them to seamlessly integrate into the Chinese physics community and efficiently develop into a leading expert in their field. The university offers a competitive remuneration and benefits package, as well as research resources, including:

— Research support with internationally competitive startup packages including spacious laboratory space, as well as the ability to purchase advanced facilities and recruit post-doctoral researchers and graduate students;

— The opportunity to rent well-furnished university apartments before tenure, and purchase new university apartments at less than one third of the market price after tenure, a pension and social insurance, medical insurance, and an annual medical examination offered by the university specifically to tenure/tenure-track faculty;

— Family support including medical insurance for children, priority registration at Zhejiang University’s kindergarten and primary school, assistance with secondary school admissions, and assistance to spouses in finding employment in Hangzhou.

— Each tenure-track/tenured faculty may recruit one Ph. D student and one postdoctoral researcher per year.

ABOUT PHYSICS AT ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY

Zhejiang University is situated in the historical east China city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, located 180km from Shanghai. Hangzhou is a picturesque city steeped in culture, once capital of the Southern Song Dynasty it is surrounded by rolling hills and green tea plantations, and is home to the scenic West Lake World Heritage Site. Hangzhou is also a modern, dynamic and outward-looking city, and has rapidly emerged as a hub for science, technology and e-commerce. Zhejiang University embodies both of these aspects; it is one of China’s oldest universities, being founded in 1897, while in recent decades Zhejiang University has been consistently ranked as one of the top few Chinese universities, and is committed to continuous development and improvement while cultivating an international outlook.

Established in 1928, the Department of Physics of Zhejiang University has been the cradle of many key breakthroughs in the physical sciences. In the 1940s, Kan-Chang Wang the department chair at the time, proposed studying the recoil of K-captured Be nuclei, which later led to the first indirect evidence for the existence of neutrinos. Tsung-Dao Lee from the class of 1943, together with Chen-Ning Yang, proposed parity violation in the weak interaction in 1957. Later that year, Chien-Shiung Wu, who was a teaching staff member in the 1930s, led the experiments examining the decay of polarized Co-60 nuclei, which confirmed this theoretical proposal. Between the 1950s and 1980s, many physicists from the Department directly took part in the Chinese nuclear program, including most notably, the two key leaders Kan-Chang Wang and Kai-Jia Cheng. The Department shrank considerably between 1952 and 1980, but then gradually rejuvenated once China embarked on economic reforms. To date, twenty physics alumni have been elected as members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and several have been elected as APS and OSA fellows. It hosts the Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Quantum Technology and Device, and part of the National Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials as well as the National Key Laboratory of Optical Engineering.

Since 2022, the university has embarked on a program to greatly strengthen fundamental research in the physical sciences and related interdisciplinary fields, as well as to cultivate high-achieving graduate and undergraduate students, and develop advanced research platforms together with an international environment for academic research and exchange. The department was reconstructed into the School of Physics, consisting of seven research institutes:

— Zhejiang Institute of Modern Physics

— Institute of Condensed Matter Physics

— Institute of Optics and Quantum Information

— Institute for Fusion Theory and Simulation

— Center for Correlated Matter

— Institute of Optoelectronic Physics

— Institute of Astronomy

This is together with the newly established Institute of Advanced Studies in Physics, which the university aims to transform into a prestigious international platform over the next ten years, in analogy to the Kavli-Institute of Theoretical Physics, so as to continue to explore the frontiers of physics and related interdisciplinary fields, and to strengthen international academic exchange and cooperation in Hangzhou.

The number of full-time faculty will be expanded to 180 members, from 105 presently. Over the next ten years, the school will recruit about 75 outstanding candidates from world-wide research institutes and universities to fill these vacancies, which may be either tenure-track or tenured faculty positions, in research disciplines such as theoretical physics, high energy physics, condensed matter physics, optics & atomic physics, quantum information, plasma physics, nuclear physics, applied physics and biological physics. Moreover, the School welcomes candidates of all nationalities, and at present, there are already ten faculty members with foreign nationality.

In 2022, eight tenure-track and four tenured faculty members were recruited by the School, in the fields of strongly correlated matter, low-dimensional quantum matter, computational condensed matter physics, soft condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics.

Detailed information about faculty members, the cultivation of undergraduate and graduate students, research facilities and platforms, and cutting-edge research in the School is available on the websites of the institutes/centers linked above (also accessible via http://physics.zju.edu.cn/phy/).