Opportunities · Program
The Tinsley Research Assistantship
CASSA's annual postbac program for women in astronomy — a paid year of publishable research that bridges the bachelor's degree and graduate school.
Why it exists
The bridge to graduate school
Between a bachelor's degree and a funded graduate position abroad lies a demanding year: research experience to gain, a first publication to work toward, recommenders to earn, and tests and applications to complete. Few paid positions in Bangladesh let a fresh graduate do all of this. The Beatrice Tinsley Postbac Research Assistantship (TRA), founded in 2026 and funded by the Sponsored Research Grant (SRG) of Dr Khan Muhammad Bin Asad, creates two such positions at the Center for Astronomy, Space Science and Astrophysics (CASSA) at Independent University, Bangladesh every year, reserved for women — to widen the participation of women in astronomy and space science in Bangladesh.
A Tinsley RA spends twelve months on publishable research, working toward at least one submitted paper as a principal author, and applies to graduate programs with that year of work — and the recommenders who supervised it — behind her.
Cadence
Annual — one cohort every year
Positions
Two per cohort — on the same or different research programs
Duration
Twelve months, full time, in person at CASSA
Eligibility
Women with a completed bachelor's degree
Outcome
At least one principal-author paper, then graduate applications
Funding
A Sponsored Research Grant (SRG) at IUB
The name
Who was Beatrice Tinsley?
Beatrice Muriel Hill Tinsley (1941–1981) was a New Zealand–raised astrophysicist and cosmologist who pioneered the modern study of galaxy evolution. In her University of Texas PhD thesis she showed that galaxies change measurably as their stellar populations age — overturning the then-standard assumption that galaxies could be treated as fixed standard candles for measuring the fate of the Universe, and turning galaxy evolution itself into a quantitative science. Her models of how a galaxy's stars form, evolve and die — the foundation of today's stellar-population synthesis — remain at the heart of how galaxy observations are interpreted, and in a career of barely fourteen years, ended by melanoma at 40, she tied galaxy evolution to chemical enrichment and observational cosmology in nearly a hundred papers. She was a professor of astronomy at Yale University, and the American Astronomical Society's Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize, awarded for research of an exceptionally creative or innovative character, is named for her.
The assistantship carries her name as a reminder of what a researcher can build in the years just after a first degree. The animated backdrop of this page is her science — galaxies born blue, brightening to gold and reddening as their stellar populations age across cosmic time.
The program
How a Tinsley year runs
The TRA is an annual program, funded by a Sponsored Research Grant (SRG) at IUB and subject to the grant's annual renewal. Each cycle is announced as a circular — on this page, on the Vacancies board and in the news feed — and stays open for about a month. Applications are reviewed by the principal investigator together with an external expert; shortlisted candidates are interviewed, and the new cohort begins in September. The inaugural cohort begins in September 2026.
Each cohort holds two positions. The two Tinsley RAs work within CASSA's active research programs — on the same program or on different ones — and each year's circular sets out the programs, topics and skills for that cycle. Whatever the year's topics, the shape of the work is the same: original research toward a principal-author paper, Python-based analysis on CASSA's Timaeus HPC, and full participation in the Center's colloquia, journal talks and weekly research meetings.
The Tinsley idea
Twelve months of research, one principal-author paper
Cycles