Prospective Graduate Students
I am always interested in new students to join our research group. I welcome ambitious, hard-working and productive researchers interested to learn more about reef corals from an ecological and physiological perspective. While I am open to discuss any project of interest related to reef coral biology, my research lab has currently a strong interest in the following areas:
1) Physiological and adaptive basis of thermal tolerance of scleractinian corals
2) immunological response of corals to pathogenic microbial agents
3) Role of the symbiotic microbial consortia in coral health and the connection with thermal tolerance
4) Symbiodiniaceae Genomics and Genome Editing
Please contact me by email if you are interested in joining the lab. Candidates that have research experience within their sub-discipline of interest will be highly competitive to join my lab. CV should be included in the email stating clearly what questions/concepts they would like to examine as part of my lab.
Potential Postdocs
I am also interested in train post-docs who would like to become research scientists. Postdoctoral experience plays an important role in establishing the basis for leadership and achieving research independence. Therefore I expect Postdoc to be independent. Through my own past postdoctoral experiences, I clearly understand that young Postdocs need to develop their own research ideas and test them. So my phylosophy is to help in assigning priorities to the new research avenues identified by the postdoc, and guide the postdoc to plan and develop his/her long-term research projects. I will expect the postdoc to take advantage of the opportunity and learn to write grant, give talks, and build networking within the field.
For Postdocs pursuing a career in academia, it is also important that they acquire teaching experience and mentoring skills for future undergraduate and graduate faculty positions. I will guide and provide opportunities for the Postdoc to mentor undergraduate and graduate students.
Because funding for post-docs is limited, that means I expect postdocs to find their own funding sources. However, I will help guiding the Postdoc in the process of identifying new sources of funding and addressing other important aspects of the grantsmanship process.
If you are interested in joining the lab, send me an email as the first contact and then we will set up a phone conversation.
Email: rodmauri@fiu.edu