Working Here

Information for prospective graduate students

Cornell faculty who are based at the Laboratory of Ornithology include:

Information for prospective students applying to work with Irby Lovette

My own research centers on speciation patterns and population structuring in birds, but I supervise students undertaking a wide variety of projects. Students working with me are likely to have a significant laboratory component to their research (although I strongly encourage students to have a major field component as well), and most (but not all) work on birds. If your interests overlap only partially with mine, you should consider contacting an additional faculty member about co-sponsorship.

At present I directly supervise four Cornell graduate students whose research is described in the Who We Are section of this site.

Graduate students at Cornell are an integral part of a supportive, dynamic, and diverse research institution. One resource of particular relevance to my students is the Evolutionary Biology laboratory that I supervise at the new Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity. This facility offers state-of-the art molecular DNA sequencing and genotyping facilities, as well as associated computer resources and graduate student space. Some of the many other resources near at hand in the Johnson Center include the staff and holdings of the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates and the Lab of Ornithology’s strong research programs in avian ecology, bioacoustics and natural sounds, and conservation. A great variety and depth of other intellectual and practical resources are available on campus through various departments and programs.

I encourage prospective students to contact me by email before starting the formal application process. I will be particularly interested in learning about your experiences in the field, museum, or laboratory and would also appreciate receiving a copy of your CV or resume. My goal is to admit students who form the nucleus of a diverse, interactive, mutually supportive, and intellectually exciting research group while at Cornell, and who go on to be valued colleagues after finishing their degrees.

Personal contact with potential advisors is an important aspect of applying to our Ph.D. program and I will be happy to discuss your plans for graduate work, but all applicants should be aware that admission to our program is highly competitive (in a typical year we enroll less than a dozen students out of an applicant pool of over 150). All admission decisions are made by a graduate field committee which reviews all applications in concert, not by individual faculty.

Although my primary office and laboratory are at the Johnson Center, my academic appointment at Cornell is in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and I suvervise students admitted to the Field of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. In this field we typically admit Ph.D.-track students. At present all Ph.D. students in this program are guaranteed five years of 12-month support. Students are, however, expected to aggressively pursue outside fellowships and research grants. Prospective students applying to work with me should simultaneously investigate national graduate fellowships such as those offered by NSF, NIH, and EPA-STAR and apply for those that are applicable to your interests and situation.

For more details on the nuts and bolts of applying for admission to the Ph.D. program in the Field of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (E&EB), see the E&EB Home Page.

If you have questions about any part of the application process per se, please email them to the graduate field assistant for E&EB, Linda Harrington (lgh4@cornell.edu).

Additional information on the faculty and resources of the Department of E&EB is at the E&EB Home Page.

In a broader arena, Cornell's Life Sciences faculty are subdivided among an unusually large number of separate departments and programs. There is extensive interaction among these groups and students frequently draw committee members (as well as informal mentors) from two or more departments.

Other Cornell departments and divisions of potential interest include: Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Natural Resources, Neurobiology and Behavior, Psychology, Center for the Environment, Laboratory of Ornithology, Cornell Veterinary School, and Shoals Marine Lab. Students working in my Evolutionary Biology Program have established collaborations with researchers from most of these other divisions. Prospective graduate students hunting for Cornell advisors should browse these departments’ web sites, as there are faculty all over campus who work with systems or topics that overlap with the research done at the Laboratory of Ornithology. Just a few examples: E&EB has a research group working on avian life-histories, Entomology has a group working on links between avian behavior and mosquito-borne disease, Molecular Biology & Genetics have several faculty who work on the population genetics of animals, and Natural Resources houses a leader in avian mark-recapture modelling.