Graduate Studies

Graduate school in biology is arduous and at times daunting. It requires a great deal of motivation, independence, and perseverance. At the same time, graduate school has many up-sides and is remarkably fun and rewarding.

I look for graduate students who show both steadfast dedication and abundant enthusiasm for the work they are doing. I view my relationships with graduate students as collaborative; students are always welcome to stop by my office to discuss their work or any interesting papers they have found. Though I expect hard and studious work from my students, I strongly feel that their experience in my lab should be overall positive and exciting.

If I have described you, and a lab environment in which you believe you will thrive, I encourage you to contact me via email. I prefer being contacted early in the admissions season, rather than a few weeks before the admissions deadline, so that we can engage in a conversation and (both) get a sense of whether working together is an ideal fit.

In your email to me, please include your CV and clearly outline the following:

• What are your scientific interests, and how do they fit with my lab?

• What questions are you interested in answering, or what projects do you want to work on? Please be as specific as you can. You do not have to have a PhD planned out to come to my lab, though I want to know the issues that you want to study while you’re here. Likewise, you may have specific projects that you want to pursue, and this is fine as well.

• What is your educational history and what is your past research experience?

Once you email, we can begin our conversation to mutually assess whether we would be a good match working together.