Student Exchange Program

This program is designed to facilitate communication between traditionally isolated research groups and to foster broader educational opportunities to students. Undergraduate and graduate students with research activities under the supervision of Deep Fin participants will be able to experience new research environments, not available to them at their home institutions. For example, a student working in a molecular systematics lab could acquire hands-on experience in morphological analysis of living or fossil fishes (and vice versa). The goal is to help lower existing barriers between traditionally isolated disciplines by raising a new generation of scientists with broad academic training experiences.

Stipends of up to $4,000 will be given to participating students to cover travel and room and board.

Eligibility: participants have to be affiliated to an accredited United States institution of research and/or education.

To apply for the student exchange program please provide the following information via email to Terry Grande at tgrande@luc.edu or Carol Stepien carol.stepien@utoledo.edu (or both). Electronic submissions are required either as a single .pdf or a .doc file containing the following sections.

1.Cover sheet with your name, education (undergrad, grad, postdoc), institutional affiliation and research supervisor, the proposed host laboratory and hosting advisor, dates of proposed exchange, title of the project, and a summary (100 word maximum) describing the goals of the exchange experience, the type of training that you will gain via the laboratory exchange, and why this is important to your research project. 

2. A brief description (1 page  maximum) of your research project, its goals, and an indication of where you are in your research time line.  Include information to make it clear how the project will contribute to our knowledge of the tree of life for fishes.  Please provide some details of the type of training that you already have experience with (e.g., morphological, paleontology, molecular) and how the new training sought will enrich your education.

3. A curriculum vitae no longer than 2 pages listing educational background, work experience, publications, and presentations.

Additionally, two letter of recommendation are required from the academic advisors, one from the current advisor and one from the hosting advisor. These should be sent directly by the advisors to Terry or Carol via email. The letters should include statements concerning the following:

• The competence of the applicant
• The significance of the new training sought for the applicant’s education and the project goal’s
• The need for the funds being requested by the applicant and the availability of matching funds for the project that could supplement DeepFin stipends and extend the duration of the training period.

Proposal Deadline: Applications should be received by 12 OCTOBER 2007; pre-application inquiries are welcomed. 

To ensure that applications are not lost in electronic transfer, confirmation e-mail will be sent to the applicants.  If you do not receive this confirmation within three days of your submission, please re-contact Terry Grande or Guillermo Orti  (gorti1@unl.edu).Funding decisions will be made within 30 days of the deadline.

Reporting Requirement: Recipients will be expected to provide a report to DeepFin (1 page) describing the accomplishments and value of the exchange experience, and any product (such as publication or thesis that might result from this work) within three months of the end of their exchange. This report should be sent via email to Terry Grande (tgrande@luc.edu). Recipients might also be invited to contribute Tree of Life pages (http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html) with the phylogeny for the focal group of their project.