To prospective students and residents
Graduate students admitted to the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience or Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Arizona State University (Tempe, Arizona) are eligible to have FeverLab as their home laboratory. I also accept visiting Ph.D. students (with a full or partial fellowship from their home institution). The lab's latest Ph.D. student is Samuel P. Wanner (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil); see the People page. You may consider visiting FeverLab for a brief tour or – even better – for a short-term (a few months?) trial. Sometimes short-term trial work can be supported by FeverLab. Please contact me if interested.
Residents admitted to the General Surgery Residency Program at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center may be able to have a dedicated research time (6 months), which they can spend working in FeverLab.
Undergraduate students and high school students. The FeverLab also accepts undergraduate students for summer and high school students to work throughout the year. Summer students are typically taken as a trial for a long-term arrangement or for executing a specific project. University of Arizona students can apply through the Undergraduate Biology Research Program (UBRP). High school students from the greater Phoenix area should apply through St. Joseph’s High School Student Research Volunteer Program. The lab’s current and recent undergraduate and high school students include Shreya Patel, Jennifer Pan, and Justin Eales; see the People page. Please check the list of Sreya's publications from the lab. Another student, Sheena Galhotra, worked in the lab through the UBRP program during the summer of 2010. Sheena's work in the lab received an article in a local newspaper (West Valley Views).
How to be a graduate student? Good advice can be found in two companion papers: "Some modest advice for graduate students" by Stephen C. Stearns and "Reply to Stearns: Some acynical advice for graduate students" by Raymond B. Huey. Both are posted on Huey’s webpage. I recommend reading both.
Truth in advertising. "Welcome to my lab. I managed to rise to this position through a combination of talent, diligence and luck — the last two of which were the most important. I'm sorry to inform you that the odds of landing a similar position are not great. Although almost all of you probably want to become tenured professors, less than half of you are likely to make it. There just aren't that many open positions, and indications are that there never will be.... Also, if I haven't yet scared you off the tenure track, please let me take this opportunity to try. It's a long, long, road. I, fortunately, only had to do one short postdoc. You, on the other hand, may need to do several longer ones — unless you pick a good principal investigator and get lucky and publish a stellar paper your first time out. Sure, it can happen, but please don't count on it. But fear not. Even if you don't get a tenure-track position, you have alternatives. Industry is not necessarily an evil entity — I've heard that some companies actually let you publish. Also... some of you may find success in non-traditional areas such as law, finance and the media. If you land one of these positions, you may be entitled to feel as smug as I." (Cited from Smaglik P. In search of the truth. Nature 418: 3, 2002.)
When you are not in the lab… Here is a list of Arizona and Phoenix area attractions, including some unique opportunities for hiking inside the city limits. Check some of the many wonderful trails!
Last updated: December 10, 2010