Graduate students
What my graduate students can expect:
My mentoring philosophy is to provide students with the essential tools and funding, positive working atmosphere, that they need to be productive independent research biologists.
I will be supportive of students. I am around the lab almost every day. I have close professional relationship with all of my students, not to micro-manage student research but to make sure students can stay on track towards reaching their goals. In general, I try to foster an interactive, supportive, and lively lab group that promotes intellectual development and research excellence.
Whenever possible, I provide students with research assistant support. This means students draw a salary for doing their research. The alternative is to be supported on other graduate assistantships (such as teaching assistant), in which case students teach to earn their stipends. Being a teaching assistant is an important part of training to become a university faculty member.
What I expect from my graduate students:
I recruit students who are seeking careers as research biologists. I expect students to be devoted to their research and to work diligently towards the completion of their research projects. The students that currently make up my lab group are highly self-motivated. Their passion is scientific investigation. I expect any students who comes to be part of my lab group to work hard at becoming a professional research biologist.