Stephen Hawking seeking new assistant

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CAMBRIDGE, England, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- British physicist Stephen Hawking is advertising for an assistant with a salary of around $38,000 a year, Cambridge University said.

Hawking, 69, who suffers from motor neuron disease, is looking for an aide to help him in "areas which he has difficulty due to his disability," the BBC reported Thursday.

The position entails maintaining Professor Hawking's speech systems and would include around three months of foreign travel a year. Applicants should be computer literate with knowledge of electronics, the advertisement on Hawking's Web site said.

The job specification said he is not seeking an academic wanting to study physics.

The position is "a purely technical post" intended to help Hawking "function within the physics community and as a public speaker," the Web posting said.

The post is funded by Cambridge University on an initial 12-month contract although past graduate assistants have stayed on for several years, the online posting said.