Undergraduates * Post Graduate * Graduate Students * Postdocs
Undergraduates
Each summer undergraduates join us to monitor reproductive success and diet of common murres, Brandt’s cormorants, pelagic cormorants, and western gulls at Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area in Newport Oregon. These positions are advertised through the HMSC REU Program: FROM ESTUARIES TO THE DEEP SEA to provide interns financial support, community, and research experience. If you are enthusiastic about applying be mindful of the deadlines for the program. Also check out the resources at Hatfield Marine Science Center for additional support for housing and other internships. Additionally, since 2022, an undergraduate intern has joined the lab to collected diet information on tufted puffins nesting at Haystack Rock. This intern photographs tufted puffins bringing back bill loads of prey. Recruitment for this position happens in March and April.
Post Baccalaureate Internships
In collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area the Seabird Oceanography Lab supports an Environment for the Americas (EFTA) post graduate research and science communication internship. Each year the EFTA intern assists BLM with educational programming typically providing education programs in Spanish and English. The EFTA intern is a key part of the seabird monitoring effort at Yaquina Head and takes the lead on monitoring cormorants and assists with monitoring of common murres, behavioral watches, diet observation, and assists with project summaries and communication.
Professional Science Master's degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Administration (PSMFWA)
If you are interested in a Professional Science Master’s degree and are looking for a major professor, please send an email introduction that includes a description of the skills you are interested in applying to your capstone project, your timeline for entering and completing the program, and a statement that you understand the cost of the degree and your funding plan. Please also send your CV and a recent writing sample. I am only able to advise PSM graduate students that are willing to undertake a capstone projects that is mostly prescribed and a useful component of an ongoing research project in the lab. My expectation is that the capstone project will result in one manuscript suitable for publication in Marine Ornithology (or similar).
Postdocs
Applicants interested in the fine-scale foraging ecology of cormorants in relationship to oceanographic features are especially encouraged to apply for the NSF-Oceanography Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Please be in touch with your project ideas along with potential funding opportunities and a timeline. I expect that you would lead proposal writing, but I will provide substantial guidance if we decide we would like to try to work together. Initiating a conversation about a proposal should happen at least three months in advance of the grant submission deadline, but if you have a well formulated idea a shorter timeline is possible!
Thesis Based Graduate Students
All grant funded graduate opportunities will be widely advertised to ensure that a diverse applicant pool is considered. These opportunities are rare.
I am only able to accept graduate students with external funding that covers two years for a MS degree or three years for a PhD. If you have been awarded a fellowship that meets these criteria please reach out following the guidance below.
I accept MS and PhD students through the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences. More information about the graduate program can be found here. Note that admission into the PhD program requires an MS or substantial evidence of MS level science. Acceptance also hinges on a multi-year funding plan. It is not necessary or useful to formally apply to the OSU Graduate School until we are confident that you will be attending OSU. Unfortunately, I am not able to invest time reviewing fellowship proposals.
*I do read every email I receive, but I will not reply to inquiries that don't have a multi-year funding plan in-hand.
Please combine items 2-4 into a single PDF file. The request below is in addition to a formal application to the OSU Graduate School.
- A short e-mail cover letter that introduces yourself, briefly describes a proposed graduate research project and your research interests, and outlines your career goals including why graduate school is the next step for you
- A complete resume or curriculum vitae that includes your undergraduate GPA
- A sample of your writing. This could be a term paper or project report; something you feel represents your writing ability
- A statement of what scholarships, fellowships, or other funding opportunities you have been awarded (NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, Nancy Foster Scholarship Program, CIMRS First-year Marine Studies Start-out Graduate Research Assistant (2021-2022), North Pacific Research Board Graduate Fellowship etc.)
Expectations
I expect graduate students to be independent, creative, and willing to learn new skills (e.g. coding, statistics, proficiency in reproducible research techniques). Gaining proficiency in R prior to graduate school is highly advantageous. I also expect a willingness to embrace the writing process starting at the very beginning of your time in graduate school.
Publishing manuscripts from your thesis is important for your study system, the birds that we all care about, your career, and the Seabird Oceanography Lab. Therefore, I expect you to publish all of your thesis chapters (with the goal of submitting at least one manuscript before your defense). I expect that your research will be conducted in the spirit of reproducible research and code and data will also be published. I believe that a successful master’s thesis can be 1 or 2 publishable chapters and a PhD thesis should be comprised of 3 publishable chapters. I learned much about how the publishing process works from being a co-author on manuscripts. Ideally graduate students will also have the opportunity to be a co-author on a manuscript during their time with the Seabird Oceanography Lab.