Grad schools: take two.

[neurobadger]

After some judicious snooping around on the possible funding available to me as a US citizen, I have had to relegate possible foreign institutions to the 'if I can secure the funding' list. (ceph, if you're floating around, can you tell me how you got the funds to go to Dalhousie?)

This leaves five schools on my main list. I want to put at least ten schools on here, with the caveat that they must all be American precisely because funding is a major factor, and I am super-paranoid about my odds of securing a sufficient ride at a foreign institution because there will be a bazillion other applicants applying for it and most American institutions' science departments will give a science grad student a full ride, as far as I'm aware!

-Chicago
-Stanford
-Brown/MBL
-Florida
-Hawaii

Can you tell me about more schools in the United States with a PhD program in biology or neuroscience or physiology that have cephalopod researchers floating around who do some study of the cephalopod nervous system, or barring that, invertebrate neuroscientists, and who are not retiring any time soon (hi Dr. Caldwell!) or are retired?

Also, if you've got any information on the international funding tendencies of the non-US institutions who have cephalopod researchers, please let me know.

 

[WhiteKiboko]

I know NC State has a Doctoral program. Not sure if Duke does, but I know they have a lab in Beaufort.

 

[bathypol]

We have a professor up here in Canada who works on invertebrate physiology. He's mainly working on nitrogen excretion pathways but might be worth checking out. Message me and I'll get you some more information

 

[neurobadger]

WhiteKiboko, thanks!

Bathypol, I'm more of a neurobiology than osmobiology person, but if they're flexible enough to allow for some neural investigation that would be great. Also, Canada by definition entails extra uncertainty financially; I'm looking mostly for US programs. However, if they have mechanisms by which foreign students can get funding, that would be great.

 

[bathypol]

neurobadger,

I'm not sure on the funding situation but I do know the university has some good in-school scholarships that may be useful (graduate student scholarships and in-department scholarships). You'd have to ask the profs here to see if they'd be up for some neuro research. They do a broad range of projects so you never know. My area is ecology so I'm not fully versed in what the physiologists do but did remember the one prof being interested in cephalopods (which is why I mentioned it).

Good luck with your search

 

[ceph]

We corresponded but I'm going to go ahead and reply; hopefully this will help others get into grad school.

The "trick" is to both know what you want and also to find a professor interested in you.

My criteria was: speaks English, does work I'm interested in, has a good reputation with their current and past graduate students (

 

[neurobadger]

Dr. Young told me you were house-sitting for him! Apparently he's house-sitting for someone else. Hawaii was on my list of grad schools but not anymore since Dr. Young said there isn't anyone there that could do much for me; unless you have more to say about that I'm going to take his advice.

Honestly I'm mostly paranoid about funding, and I don't think my grades or GREs are going to be a problem. But even an awesome GPA is no guarantee of funding.

Right now I'm sort of poking about the literature I can find (I'm going to see if I can arrange a day where I can sift through Dr. Mike Vecchione's massive cephalopod library, probably on my birthday) to think about avenues of neurobiological cephalopod research I can head down for a dissertation and for post-PhD work. The Smithsonian also has JZ Young's stuff, and it's a gold mine. I'm taking advantage of everything I can get here. I've still got plenty of time before I start applying to graduate schools.

I'd honestly be comfortable if I could rack up about eight or nine graduate schools and at least five United States ones; if Dr. Bolstad could pop in on this thread and tell me how she got into AUT to work with Dr. O'Shea, I'd appreciate it.

 

[Tintenfisch]

Hi NB

I met Steve at a time when he had just been offered a job teaching at AUT, so I was his first grad student. I hadn't actually planned on such an imminent start to grad studies, but Steve offered me the chance to do a PhD with him (fool! ) so of course there was only one response to that. Many of the ceph students we have had come through here since have been on either international or domestic scholarships; I actually had to take a year off from studying in order to get NZ residency so I became eligible for a domestic scholarship that allowed me to finish. You could ask our current Master's students Heather (TONMO user Heather Braid) and Aaron (GPO87) (both Canadian) whether they have any advice on getting foreign study sorted out -- I will point them to this thread. As far as the situation at AUT goes, well, things are a little in flux here at the moment, but stay tuned. Hope that helps!

 

[GPO87]

I'm pretty sure there is funding available for American students (unfortunely not for canadian...) offered by AUT. I'm not sure about the amount though, as I was not eligable for it. If you are interested in researching Ceph's, I would look into the grad program here! Actually, even without the Ceph's, studying abroad is proving to be a rewarding experience. But definitely look at funding from the school, because I know money is important. I am currently in a whole lotta debt right now, but I figure it's worth it! haha.

 

[DWhatley]

Happy Birthday GPO87! Looks like your folks made sure you would have an old fashioned fun time, even so far from home (noted on Heather's photo book )

 

[Heather Braid]

When I was looking at grad school I had two options: stay in Canada and have my grad school funded (since they pay you there) but I would not be able to do taxonomy, or end up in heaps of debt and live my dream of squid taxonomy on a tropical island paradise going to AUT. I picked the expensive option, but the far better one. I figure that going to grad school is something that will essentially pay for itself - since one day you can get a good job and pay off all your horrible debt. AUT seems to be the place to be for squids, and I love it. Money issues are always a worry, but sometimes you just have to do things that make you happy. Also, at AUT if you do a PhD it costs you about 6000$ a year for tuition.

Best of luck!

 

[neurobadger]

WHOA KAT SHOWED UP (I've run across eleventy thousand specimens you've identified at the Smithsonian so far. Largely onychoteuthids, of course. I'm all 'OH MAN A TONMOER IDENTIFIED THIS'. I even poked at one of your Onykia carriboea under a scope. I'm learning squid taxonomy from another of THE MASTERS, and it is awesome. Currently I'm poking around bathyteuthids trying to figure out the species differences for myself. Bathyteuthis abyssicola stays nice and red in isopropanol. I've poked at specimens from all cephalopod families but the Octopodidae and Nautilidae, and yes, that includes the Architeuthidae .)

Awesome; I will certainly keep that in mind. Do you guys have the flexibility for someone who's interested more in the neurobiological side of teuthology? If not, got any suggestions? I've basically only found a few people who do ceph neuro/behavior things - Drs. Adamo/O'Dor (Dr. Wood, please correct me if I'm wrong!) at Dalhousie, Dr. Hanlon at MBL, Dr. Tublitz at Oregon, Dr. Moroz at Florida, and some professor whose name I can't remember in Queensland. Any more in the States and in other English-speaking countries?

Heather, $6000 a year for tuition, but what about the visas and other sundry paperwork and travel and all that minutiae? Surely that racks up a lot of bucks.

 

[Tintenfisch]

Cool ... if you really want to travel back through the swirling sands of time (and jars), poke around in the asellote isopod collections; that's where my career in taxonomy actually started. (James, I didn't know you were another graduated Smithsonian intern!) And Onykia carriboea is a taxonomic time-bomb... did you hear it ticking while you had it out?

 

[ceph]

I was also a Smithsonian Intern, but not in Washington DC. Instead, I was stationed at the Smithsonian Link Port field station in Florida at the Harbor Branch facility. This was before harder times hit HB - at the time lots of interesting innovative well funded science was going on in the bigger HB setting - deep-sea exploration and marine aquaculture. Through seminars, staff volleyball games and HB interns, I was able to vicariously participate in some of that as well.

Back then the Link Port Smithsonian Field Station (doesn't that sound exotic?) was on a salvaged WWII barge and there was some concern about when it would sink. I understand that the Link Port station has since substantially upgraded and plan to visit it soon. Clyde and Mike were my official advisers but were physically in Washington most the summer. The Link Port staff were my day to day mentors. The project was to catch paralarval squid out of the gulf stream and grow them up in captivity to a size where they could be identified - these days we would simply use molecular techniques. I didn't get to far, squid caught in standard plankton nets are pretty much already dying when you get them (and squid are difficult enough as it is) but I did learn a lot that summer and had a very good experience. Mike came down toward the end of the summer so I was able to meet him in person for the first time too.

 

[neurobadger]

I'm stationed at the MSC, actually. The only living things I've seen there that aren't humans are the occasional bug and the medicinal leeches in an aquarium in the lab. (I named them Vlad, after Vlad 'Dracula'/ 'Țepeș', and Bela, after Bela Lugosi. Yes, I know they're hermaphrodites.)