Prospective Graduate Students
I typically recruit one new graduate student per year but, when funding allows, I will consider additional applications. I am particularly interested in recruiting Ph.D. students who have significant undergraduate research experience or a Masters degree in hand. However, exceptional students aiming to pursue a Masters degree also will be considered. If you are interested in joining the Earley lab, please contact me at rlearley@bama.ua.edu with a brief description of your research interests. Please also include an updated curriculum vitae complete with your educational background, GPA, GRE scores, and a list of research or travel abroad experiences, research skills and experiences (e.g., SCUBA, statistics, techniques under your belt), presentations and publications. Information about the formal application process can be found here.
Keys to Success - I am thrilled to work with graduate students who have a passion for discovery that drives both their work ethic and their productivity. My aim is to recruit students who are willing to proactively develop both a solid conceptual framework for their ideas and accompanying experimental designs towards the end of generating independent research projects. I work closely with my graduate students to cultivate these skills but, I do not micro-manage their research pursuits so, a good dose of independent motivation and willingness to dive in to the literature are key! I do not require my graduate students to study the systems that we are currently using but, our laboratory is best suited to study fishes. We have established field sites in the Florida and Carribbean mangrove ecosystems, local watersheds, and the volcanic lakes of Nicaragua; our connections with research stations in the Gulf and in California (e.g., Catalina island) also can foster student research projects. We are a highly interactive group and one of the keys to research success, which I wholeheartedly encourage, is collaboration among graduate students and between graduate and undergraduate students, intellectual exchange during reading group (or any other time!), and close interaction with an international team of researchers who regularly visit the lab. We house over 1,500 fish in our laboratory so, I am also keen to recruit students who are invested in the husbandry of their study animals! If you are interested in learning more about the lab, check out our lab video here. I also encourage prospective students to contact my graduate students (click on student photos here) to get an objective opinion about conducting research in the Earley lab.