Undergraduate Opportunities: 

Undergraduates generally join the lab on work study, for independent study credit, or for  honors projects; occasionally there is some opportunity for paid technician work, as well. Students in the lab gain skills, depending on their interests, that may include field skills such  as censusing and trapping wild birds, along with data entry and proofing, dissection, specimen preparation, microscopy, digitizing and motion analysis. Current projects in the lab include colonial seabird breeding biology on an island in Long Island Sound, where we are studying breeding behavior, nest site characteristics, survival and movement of chicks, and disease in two threatened species of tern. There are periodic opportunities for single-day volunteer work trips; these are typically in late April/early May. We also study the physical and mechanical properties of feathers, with particular interest in how the structure and materials of feathers contribute to waterproofing and thermoregulation. We welcome students interested in addressing barriers to equitable participation in ornithology and birding.  We support independent thinking in undergraduate researchers, and work to help students  become researchers in their own right.

Graduate Student Opportunities:

The lab is currently full; we are unable to take new graduate students for the immediate future.