The Gravitational Astrophysics* group at the University of Sydney's School of Physics represents the Australian hub of a new, major international program to study the Galactic Archaeology of our nearest neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy (The Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey; PAndAS**). We are seeking a new PhD student to join our group and play an active role in the PAndAS program, using a dataset of unprecedented size and scope to determine the cosmological growth of Andromeda, while targeting substructure to characterise the ongoing accretion and assimilation of dwarf galaxies. Recent observational and theoretical advances have placed the detailed analysis of nearby galaxies at the heart of efforts to understand galaxy formation and evolution in a cosmological context through the study of their resolved stellar populations. The successful student will work directly with data taken with state-of the art instrumentation, and have opportunities to become involved either in data analysis or numerical analysis to reconstruct the evolution of our nearest galactic neighbour. The student will work closely with members of the collaboration, especially Alan McConnachie (DAO, Canada) and Rodrigo Ibata (Strasbourg, France), and it is envisaged that the student will undertake extended collaboratory visits overseas, attend international meetings, as well as taking an active role in observing programs. Only one position is available at the present time and students will be assessed on merit.

Interested students should contact Geraint Lewis (gfl@physics.usyd.edu.au) as soon as possible. Applications are due at the Faculty of Science by the 31st October 2008.

The Institute of Astronomy at the School of Physics represents one of the largest and most active astronomical research groups in Australia. It is part of the School of Physics, one of the most vibrant and diverse Schools in the country.

*GravAst homepage: http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/GravAst/

**PAndAS homepage: http://www.astro.uvic.ca/~alan/PANDAS/pandas.html