Information for Prospective Students
Note! Applications for graduate study should be submitted directly to the Department of Biology, rather than to the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP). Information on applying to our graduate program in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology is available here.
Students receive superior training for future research careers when they are allowed considerable independence in their Ph.D. studies. Rather than being handed part of a larger project, it is important for a student to identify a key unsolved problem based on a critical review of the literature and then design and execute the experiments that will provide a definitive answer.
As a result, the research topics of my Ph.D. students have been diverse, including investigations of the mechanisms of adhesion in invertebrates, the role of the tensile properties of water in nature, the sensitivity of echinoderms to polarized skylight and its potential role in their behavior and ecology, the structure and function of peristaltic locomotion in holothurians, the ontogeny of squid mantle structure and function and its implications for jet locomotion, molting in crustaceans and the use of hydrostatic skeletal support following shedding of the rigid skeleton, and the structure and function of a novel joint mechanism in invertebrates.
I just moved into wonderful new space in the newly renovated Old Wilson Hall. In addition, several students defended their dissertations recently and I therefore have space available in my laboratory. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in graduate work in Department of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.