Mentors

For research mentors:

Staff affiliated with the Cornell Lab and the CUMV are eligible to apply for funding to support your efforts to provide opportunities for undergraduate students. Follow the links to learn more about funding for Cornell undergraduate students: Experiential Learning Grants, Student Employment Funds, Student Research Funds, Student Conference Travel Awards, and Training Expedition Funding. For graduate student funding, see the Research Funding section under the graduate student tab.

For students:

If you are looking to become involved in independent research, it is important to find a research mentor who has the time to provide quality mentoring and whose expertise aligns well with your interests. Whether you are looking to learn how to analyze existing datasets (e.g., eBird, FeederWatch, NestWatch, bioacoustics data) or to go into the field and collect your own data, connecting with the right mentor will be key to your success. Finding that mentor is often the first big challenge. Be bold. Reach out to faculty, research staff, postdocs, and graduate students to seek advice. Persistence is often important, as is doing your homework before connecting with a potential mentor. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the research conducted by the potential mentor and other students and postdocs in their lab group. Demonstrate that you have done some background work. Sending a generic email that says, “hey, I’m interested in studying birds” will generally not work. Know that mentors have many responsibilities competing for their time, so you’ll need to stand out to be noticed. It is a good idea to seek advice from more experienced students or your professors; they may point you towards the ideal opportunity. Be persistent, and get started early.

Below is a list of Lab and CUMV staff who often work with students in various capacities. For faculty and staff who can serve as advisors for graduate students, see Prospective Graduate Students under the Graduate tab.