The way it works in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology is that Ph.D. students are accepted by an admissions committee on the basis of their qualifications, rather than by a specific professor, although a professor does have to agree to act as a temporary advisor. I have regularly accepted Ph.D. students this way. I am not currently accepting students interesting in obtaining an M.Sc. degree.

What unites our lab is the conceptual, question-oriented focus we apply to understanding interactions. I seek students with deep interests in studying issues surrounding the ecology and evolution of interspecific interactions, through field, laboratory, and/or theoretical approaches. I encourage their independence; it is common for them not to focus on my own study systems (see their webpages for examples!), although if it’s too “out there” I am likely to tell them that I can’t be an effective advisor. I also expect my students to have a solid quantitative background, or at least to be willing to get one in graduate school.

While I and many of my students do have a strong interest in conservation and our work in many cases is directly relevant to conservation issues, we do not focus on applied questions, such as conservation strategies for particular species of interest. Nor is work of this nature conducted in other parts of my department. Students with interests along these lines instead join the School of Natural Resources, which, unlike my department, is designed to train future conservationists and managers.

I should probably point out that EEB accepts only about one in 5-10 applicants. Most of the students we accept score above the 85th percentile on the GREs; we look particularly at the biology and quantitative test scores. Even more than GRE scores, though (especially since more and more students don’t submit them!), previous research experience is weighted heavily, as are recommendation letters. It’s also, of course, important to write a really compelling application essay that makes it clear that you have a good sense of the subfield you are interested in and the kind of research contribution you could see making to it.

My graduate students come from two doctoral programs at University of Arizona in addition to Ecology and Evolutionary Biology: the Interdisciplinary Program in Insect Science and the Department of Entomology (to which I am jointly appointed). If one of these programs seems attractive to you, we can correspond about the costs and benefits of applying to each one of them; there are some important considerations you will want to take into account in making your choice (you can only apply to one department in a given year). All of them are top-notch, and students interact with me the same way regardless of what department they belong to.

There are two more general reasons to come to University of Arizona for graduate school: first, the depth and breadth of education in ecology and evolutionary biology that you can get in a large, world-class department devoted to those subjects; and second, the availability of year-round, local study systems in an incredibly beautiful setting.