Jobs

Supports and advances the education and public outreach mission of McDonald Observatory and The University of Texas at Austin. Public Program Facilitators deliver content for programs including guided tours, solar viewing, star parties, special viewing, workshops, and livestream programs. Facilitators lead in-person evening and daytime programs for groups of 10-500 visitors and on-camera livestream programs for thousands of viewers. Program Facilitators also assist with community activities, special projects, events, and programs on and off-site.

This position supports the McDonald Observatory’s education and public outreach mission by assisting with reservations, admissions, and visitor services at the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center.

This position provides strong administrative support for the McDonald Observatory West Texas operations and works collaboratively with West Texas staff and the McDonald Observatory Austin Business Office.https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=job&page=order-post-types-job

This position is part of the McDonald Observatory’s instrumentation group and exercises broad independent judgment to design, analyze, build, test, and support optomechanical and electromechanical subsystems for the McDonald Observatory’s instrument and telescope development projects. This position reports to the Chief Astronomer.

Performs highly skilled and technical supervisory work fabricating precision parts from drawings and solid models by programming, setting up, and operating CNC vertical milling machine, CNC lathe, and CNC wire EDM. Use manual machine tools and all other machine shop-related equipment as necessary.

Assists the McDonald Observatory’s engineering group with tasks related to the design and fabrication of instruments, and assists the Astronomy Department with instructional telescopes, classrooms, and other tasks. Supervises the machine shop, coordinating and developing schedules and workflow to ensure appropriate progress on mechanical engineering projects.

The Travel and Entertainment Specialist serves as the primary point of contact and resource for departmental business travel and entertainment requests and payments. In this role, you assist with and arrange travel for staff, faculty, students, and non-employees, and process reimbursements. Process entertainment documentation and expenses in coordination with the business officer for official occasions. As a business office team member, you support administrative and departmental operations and accounts receivable, accounts payable, and purchasing as required.