Postdoctoral researchers and visiting scientists:
Please get in touch if you are interested in collaboratively developing a proposal for a research grant or fellowship. There are many funding opportunities such as the Washington Research Fellows, NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology, Smith Fellowship for postdocs, and Fulbright Scholars for international collaborators. Writing a proposal and funding your postdoctoral research is a fantastic way to increase your competitiveness on the job market.
Graduate students
Graduate students can join our group through the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (MS or PhD). Funding is usually my limiting factor in taking graduate students, so consideration of potential funding sources will be an important part of your application.
| 2024 update: I currently have no funded grants to support new students, so I am unlikely to admit a student without external funding. Competitive students interested in applying for external fellowships should reach out to me through this interest form. |
Information about our applying to our graduate program
Requirements
Our MS program averages 2 years and our PhD program averages 5-6 years to graduation, and consists of about 1-2 years of coursework and then the rest of the time purely focusing on your thesis/dissertation research. For MS students, I expect students to have 1-2 publications by the end of their second year. For a Ph.D. student, a typical dissertation consists of 3 or so scientific papers. Our program requirements can be found here here. In order to be eligible to apply for the PhD program in our department, you must first complete an MS. If you are interested in a Ph.D., this is not a problem. Essentially you will just apply to complete a Masters of Science in the department with me first and then you can transition directly into the Ph.D. program once you’ve completed the MS portion of your studies, assuming that you are in good standing (you can find more information on pg. 13 of our student handbook).
Funding
There are four real options for funding your tuition & stipend, listed here in terms of their desirability from my perspective:
-
- External fellowships which pay the student directly, for example NSF GRFP (the deadline for GRFP is typically in October), which pays for 3 years of student funding. Unfortunately, students who already have a masters are not eligible for NSF GRFP, however, I encourage students to investigate other potential external funding options where possible and I am always happy to help support fellowship proposals.
- Internal fellowships awarded to the student directly. There are some internal fellowships both through university departments and through the larger university; I have listed some of these fellowships here for UW. These funds tend to be more limited in the number of years that they are able to fund students, but are great to help fill out funding. The internal fellowships that are awarded to students upon admission are based on your application materials, awarding fellowships to some of the most competitive applicants to our program.
- Research Assistantships (RAships) on your advisor’s grants. These are great as they protect research time, however they do have some limits on what you can research because you’re being funded to complete an aspect of a project that your PI got funded by NSF/DOE/USDA etc. This is great if said project is what you want your dissertation work to focus on, but is less ideal the farther away the project is from your personal research dreams. As I am just starting out, I currently have no funded grants with which to support grad students.
- Teaching Assistantships (TAships) are a bit more limited and not guaranteed in our department (they tend to be more plentiful in larger Biology departments that offer Introductory Biology-type courses). Teaching is a very important part of the graduate student experience that can be critical for solidifying your understanding of content, giving back to the larger scientific community, and even helping to alleviate imposter syndrome and depression among graduate students. I hope that all of my students teach for 2-3 quarters to gain this experience, however I consider this is ‘backstop’ funding, that theoretically obligates you to 20 hrs per week of teaching (running lab sections, grading, etc.) and is not guaranteed by my department. In practice, TAships vary a lot by course, and can take up a lot of time, particularly if you’re teaching the course for the first time.
Potential committee members
Especially as science becomes increasingly multi-disciplinary, it’s important that you have different faculty present in your department and broader institution to help further support your research goals. In selecting a graduate program, it is therefore important to consider who you might want to serve on your qualifying exam and dissertation committees as people that will help push your science into new and exciting realms. I encourage you to investigate potential committee members in SEFS and across the broader UW campus community. Additionally, for your application it will also be important to identify at least 2 other SEFS faculty members that you envision being on your committees as they will help serve as reviewers for your application.
My search criteria
As I decide which graduate students to admit to my research program, criteria that especially stand out to me are:
-
- Research Fit: This refers to specific criteria, including the fit of your research ideas within my larger research program, your contributions to diversity at its many intersections, how you will contribute to a welcoming and collegial lab environment, and mentorship, or your willingness to invest in building the scientific capacity of others in the lab
- Character: I will have a steep learning curve in my first years as faculty, so I’m looking for self-directed people who can formulate specific scientific questions and lead the research process from an early stage. Additionally, it is an exciting process of learning new things and doing research that has never been done before. By nature of the scientific process, this also means that you will likely hit some roadblocks along the way in working on things that no one has worked on before. Accordingly, I am looking for folks who have demonstrated the ability to overcome challenges.
- Previous experience: One of my favorite parts of the scientific process is that it is so cross-cutting. From thinking about important theories and questions within which you situate your work to experimental design, lab/field techniques, data analysis, and writing it all up, we get to wear so many hats as scientists (which ensures that we will never be bored!). While a lot of these skills are things that I expect students to be able to develop in graduate school, some experience with each of these different aspects of the research process is important.
Undergraduate students
If you are interested in forest ecology and would like to learn about ways to join our lab group for undergraduate research experience, please fill out this interest survey. If you are an undergrad in SEFS, check out the Senior Capstone as an option, as well.