Joining SCARR
I am always looking for motivated students, both undergraduates and graduate
students, to join my research group. I appreciate your interest in
potentially joining us. This page has some advice on how to get started.
Our Research
You can learn a bit about what my research involves from
this list of our papers.
Even if the technical details aren't fully clear, having some idea about
the general "flavor" of what we do will make it easier to figure out if your
interests and skills are a good fit.
For prospective graduate
students and postdocs, it is particularly helpful to browse our prior work
prior to contacting me.
Graduate Admissions
Because admissions are handled by a committee, I cannot decide who gets into
any of our programs. You can find some information about our admissions
process on the
webpage
for our graduate programs.
The application for our Ph.D. program has a
place for you to indicate which faculty you are interested in working with;
entering my name in this field will help to ensure that I can voice my
opinion to the committee about your application.
Form Letters
Many prospective graduate students and visitors seem to send identical emails to large
numbers of professors. Unfortunately, I generally get too many of these
emails to reply to each one.
Assistantships
I usually do not offer financial support to students before I get to know
them well.
However, all admitted students are automatically considered for support
from the directly from the department, in the form of teaching
assistantships and fellowships.
Interns and Visitors
I am happy to welcome visitors and interns from other universities if there
is some strong overlap in our research interests. Unfortunately, I cannot
offer any financial support for this kind of arrangement.
Postdocs
I do not currently have funding to hire any postdocs. I am happy to work
with postdocs that have both independent funding and research interests
close enough to mine that I would be able to provide useful mentoring.
Group Meetings
My research group holds weekly group meetings throughout the Fall and
Spring semesters. Each meeting features a
presentation by a member of the group about their latest research progress
and a group discussion about the next steps for that research.
Anyone at USC who is interested learning more about what our group does is
welcome to attend these meetings.
Send me email for date and time of the next meeting.
Take a Class from Me
Taking a class from me — either a formal course or an independent
study — is one of the best ways to find out if there is good match
between our interests and personalities. Many of the most successful
students that have come through my lab have started as students in one of
my classes.
Magellan Grants
USC offers a competitive program called
Magellan Scholars that
funds mentored undergraduate research projects. If you are eligible
(GPA>=3.3), perhaps we can work together to find a project that makes sense
as a Magellan.
Talk to Me
I am happy to talk with anyone about what we are doing and how you might be
able to get involved. You can use
this site to add yourself to my
calendar.
- If you are in Columbia, meet me in my office,
room 2229 in the Innovation Center.
- If you are not in Columbia, we can talk via
Skype or Google Hangouts.
- If you feed me lunch, we'll
have even more time to chat.