FOR PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS:

            I am recruiting students to join my lab as PhD Students (I generally do not take students pursuing a Masters degree).  I welcome students working on a diverse range of topics (see Research), from a variety of backgrounds, and especially students from under represented groups. I’m especially interested in students who are interested in working at the interface of applied questions and basic science (e.g. disease ecology and public health, conservation and population biology), and students with quantitative backgrounds who are interested in working at the interface of data and models.  I expect my students to be willing to learn both mathematics and statistics, even if they are not particularly adept at either at present.

If you are interested in joining my lab, please read the Research page, and then read these two papers that are emblematic of the topics of my research, and my research methodology (find pdfs for them on the Publications page):

Kilpatrick, A.M., Daszak, P., Jones, M.J. , Marra, P.P., Kramer, L.D. 2006. Host heterogeneity dominates West Nile virus transmission. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273 (1599) 2327-2333.

Kudos if you can point out two shortcomings in this paper that changes the results substantially (one makes it more likely that robins are responsible for infecting >90% of the mosquitoes!).  A hint: what would you expect the ratio of robin seroprevalence to house sparrow seroprevalence to be?

Langwig, K.E., W.F. Frick, J.T. Bried, A.C. Hicks, T.H. Kunz, A.M. Kilpatrick. 2012. Sociality, density-dependence, and microclimates determine the persistence of populations suffering from a novel fungal disease, white-nose syndrome. Ecology Letters 15 (9) 1050-1057

Can you explain multiple reasons why the spatial and temporal analyses of population trajectories of little brown bats in this paper aren’t inconsistent (hint: at first sight, they appear to contradict each other).

If, after puzzling over these questions, you’re still interested, then please send me an email with a CV including your GPA (and the scale, or maximum possible GPA at your institution) and a description of what you’re be interested in working on –  brainstorm a few ideas. I’ve also made a list of other papers (with a few comments) that are emblematic of the research in my lab.

ONE VERY IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATION:

Make sure to apply for as many graduate fellowships as you might be qualified for the same year (in the Fall, generally) that you apply for graduate school.  This will make you much more attractive to me (and other potential faculty advisors) and give you some experience brainstorming a research project.
The NSF graduate research fellowship is the most general fellowship that I know of:
http://www.nsfgrfp.org/

(Deadline: Usually in Oct/Nov)

There are many other graduate fellowships out there (e.g. http://hertzfoundation.org/fellowships/application/), and many fellowships targeting particular types of students that may include you!  Please spend some time searching for these including talking to faculty and grad students at your undergraduate institution.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Marm