Any student interested in applying for Honors or Independent research with a faculty member in the Biology Department should first talk to faculty members about your mutual interests and their labs. To facilitate this process, there will be an evening informational meeting about honors research in January. Most faculty labs will encourage visitors during a lab "open house" when current research students and faculty members will be available to answer questions. Here is a linkto a document describing faculty research projects--this will also be available at the January info session as well as outside the Biology Dept. Office (TBL219). After researching the array of research opportunities available, you should carefully read and complete this application and submit it to the Biology Department by 5 PM January 21, 2009. The application form will ask you whether you would like to work in your honors research lab during the summer, so be prepared to supply that information.

For the academic year 2009-2010, the following faculty members will have openings in their labs for honors students: Art, Banta, Dean, Edwards, Hutson, Lynch, Morales, Raymond, Savage, Smith, Swoap, Ting, Williams and Zottoli. There is also the opportunity to begin your thesis in Spring 2009 (finishing in WSP 2010) working with Professors Art, Edwards, Smith, or Williams. They have specific projects in mind which require most data be collected during the spring semester (when birds sing, flowers bloom, vernal pools exist...).

In thinking about performing research in a faculty member's lab, the most important point to consider is the value of gaining research experience rather than the specific topic or laboratory in which the research is done. It is the experience of performing original scientific research, and not the specific topic or project, that is valuable and important. To be sure, someone with a strong interest in ecology will prefer to work in that field, but within that area the research experience gained will be comparably valuable regardless of whether the project involves chorus frog population structure, pollination strategies, treehopper-ant mutualism, or dispersal of wildflowers.

Each summer dozens of students are hired to assist Williams faculty in their research programs. Students work up to ten weeks and receive a stipend of $xxx/week (if they live in the dormitories their room is paid for, but they must pay for at least a few meals/week in the dining halls). If you are interested in this job opportunity you must first talk to faculty members to discuss your interest in doing research and the type of research being done in their labs. To facilitate this process, there will be an evening informational meeting about summer research one evening in early February, as well as a "lab open house" when current research students and faculty members will be available to answer questions. [Not all faculty will be hiring students this summer--a list of faculty who are hiring students will be available here in early February, but you are welcome at any time to look over the faculty webpages on this website.] After researching the array of research opportunities available, you should carefully read and complete the summer research application and submit it to the Biology Department by 11 PM on February 17, 2009.