Opportunities

Thank you for your interest in joining us! We are currently recruiting students and postdocs. Current lab foci are detailed on the research page, but if there is another project that is exciting to you and intersects with our work, please feel free to reach out.

PhD Students  Postdoctoral Scholars  Undergraduate Students

PhD Students

Ideal candidates will be interested in linking biodiversity change with human outcomes, bridging field and big-data approaches, and identifying opportunities to align biodiversity conservation with societal objectives around public health, food systems, and renewable energy. While we tend to focus on freshwater systems, we are interested in a wide variety of approaches and study contexts. Current lab research themes include: 

1. Quantifying vertebrate biodiversity and its consequences in wild food systems
2. Environmental and health tradeoffs of freshwater aquaculture expansion
3. Macroecology, functional traits and elemental/nutrient variation in fishes and other aquatic vertebrates
4. Balancing climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation goals in protected area and renewable energy expansion
5. Biodiversity foundation models

If you are interested in joining us, please send Sebastian an email addressing your experiences and interests in joining the lab, and include your CV. At this point you do not need to have a well-defined thesis idea, but a general sense of what research topics excite you would be appropriate to include in the email. 

Students are admitted through the ESS PhD Program, and the website has more information about the program and application process. The deadline to apply is in December, but getting in touch before is recommended. I can also admit students through the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources. Our school also has additional useful information for prospective graduate students, such as applying for application fee waivers, tips for writing a strong application essay, and funding programs.

See further guidance on contacting potential advisors and applying for grad school.  And work your way through the lab website and publications to consider whether our interests are well aligned!

Postdoctoral Scholars

We welcome inquiries from exceptional candidates whose interests align with one or more of the following lab themes listed here and above. Prospective postdoctoral scholars are strongly encouraged to apply for independent funding, including national programs (e.g., Smith Fellows) and Stanford-sponsored programs (see here). If interested, please reach out early to discuss project ideas.

Undergraduate Students

We encourage enthusiastic undergraduates that want to join us to email Sebastian with your CV and include reasons why you’d be interested in joining the lab and experiences you hope to get out of it.