I am always happy to hear from those interested in joining our lab, at the undergraduate, graduate (MSc and PhD) or post-doctoral level. If you are an interested candidate, please get in touch as early as possible. Also see these general notes before getting in touch.
Undergraduate positions
Independent Research and Honours projects
Specific projects will be listed here, but feel free to contact me to discuss other possibilities. It is highly recommended for students to have taken courses in animal behaviour, behavioural ecology, experimental psychology, and/or behavioural neuroscience. We are usually not able to accept applications from U0 and U1 students.
Work study positions
The McGill Work Study Program offers undergraduate students with financial need the opportunity for paid work within our laboratory, both in the semester and during summer.
Summer positions
We are happy to support funding applications for summer research internships for qualified candidates. This page details funding opportunities for summer research projects at McGill. Note that many of these schemes are highly competitive.
Volunteer positions
We do not generally take on unpaid volunteers, apart from as part of another position: we often find it useful for project students to gain experience in the laboratory before committing to a research project. We will post any openings on this page, but contact me if you would like to volunteer. To facilitate equity of access, we typically cap summer voluntary positions at 15h/week.
Graduate positions
It is strongly advised for graduate applicants to contact me to discuss possible opportunities before listing me as a prospective thesis supervisor on the McGill online application, as places may not always be available. Please also note the departmental and university admission requirements, including the CGPA requirements. If you are an international applicant, please also see this page on international grade equivalencies. In your application, please indicate if you are eligible for entry at the MSc and/or PhD level, and mention any possible funding sources you would be eligible to apply for, since funding is often vital to admission.
Funding
Note that students must be funded by my research grants or by McGill or external grant funding: the Biology department does not allow students to fund themselves from personal or family resources. A useful list of potential funding sources is on the Department of Biology site. For international applicants, please let me know if international fee waivers are available. For example, French students are eligible for Quebec rates of tuition. Unfortunately, McGill fee waivers for international MSc applications are very rare, and thus an external fee waiver is essential for international MSc applicants. McGill does regularly award fee waivers for international PhD applicants. Current and previous graduate students in my laboratory have won NSERC, FRQNT, and NEO funding for their studies.
Post-doctoral positions
Please contact me to discuss possible funding avenues. Current and previous postdoctoral fellows in my laboratory have won NSERC, Banting, FRQNT, Tomlinson and Fyssen Foundation fellowships. Consult this useful list of potential funding sources on the Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies site. At present I do not have full post-doctoral funding available, although I may be able to 'top up' fellowships.
General notes
We work with a variety of study systems in the laboratory and field, with much of our current work focused on guppy behaviour, behavioural ecology, and behavioural neuroscience. Useful recent reviews to begin reading about our work and the kinds of questions we are interested are Reader 2016 and Reader et al. 2016 (both are open access).
If you get in touch regarding research opportunities
- Outline your research interests and research background, including a description of why you would like to join this lab and the questions that interest you, and attach a brief CV.
- Indicate your citizenship, as this determines eligibility for certain funding opportunities.
- Specify what position interests you, when you are available or would like to begin and attach your academic transcript, if available.
- Undergraduate students should let me know if they are eligible and currently registered for the Work Study program.
- Send all files in PDF format (ideally as a single file), with your surname in the filename.
- For graduate applicants, if your application is a good fit to the lab and it looks like space will be available, I typically arrange an interview, request you write a one-page description of your research interests, and take up references.
If you wish to be alerted of new openings posted to this page, notification services such as ChangeDetection may be useful.
Please note that I receive a large number of enquiries, and am not able to reply immediately to all emails. If you do not hear back from me within a week, feel free to send me a reminder.
Some useful links
Last update: January 12, 2023