A Letter to Prospective Students
If you are interested in being my graduate student, great! Send me an e-mail or come by the lab. Your main task is to convince me that you will do well in my lab. That will require three things.
- Know what I do. My research is outlined on this web site, and of course, you should read my papers. Make sure that you are indeed interested in the same kinds of questions as me.
- Be self-motivated, but not dogmatic. The most successful scientists are those that have a strong intellectual interest in a particular area, but are flexible enough to see the links to other, maybe unexpected, fields. (Note that I am driven mainly by the challenge of understanding and/or simplifying a complex problems, rather than a love for a particular taxon or region of the world. For example, most of my research to date has been on birds because they make great systems for studing long-term community dynamics, but still I am not a birder! That doesn't mean you can't study a favorate group or taxon, or do fieldwork. On the contrary, I encourage it. But you must have a feel for the bigger picture.)
- Come and visit the lab.
If all goes well, then you will apply to the graduate program at Rutgers or NJIT, and I will make your case to the admission committee.
