GRADUATE STUDIES IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION AT EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY
The graduate program in the Department of Biology at East Carolina University invites applications from prospective PhD and MS students for fall 2017. East Carolina University is the third largest campus in the University of NC system and has an active and well-supported group of faculty working in the areas of ecology and evolution. Currently, we have >50 MS students and >20 doctoral students enrolled in our graduate programs. Students accepted into the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Biological Sciences will receive at least five years of support at a very competitive level. TA-ships are readily available in our two MS programs and Biology faculty members also supervise students in ECU's Coastal Resource Management PhD program. Our faculty members (see below) conduct research across the globe and excellent opportunities exist to work in terrestrial, freshwater, wetland and marine systems. Our students enjoy living in the affordable community of Greenville, NC and having access to several natural areas, universities and research centers located in central and eastern NC. The Biodiversity Initiative at East Carolina University also provides graduate students with opportunities to participate in journal clubs, workshops, and outreach events and access to high performance desktop computers. In addition to resources within faculty labs, students also have access to a Central Environmental lab, a genomics core facility, and a high performance computing core. Application deadlines vary with particular programs but students applying early will have a greater chance of receiving financial support. Please visit http://www.ecu.edu/biology/ to find out more about our department, faculty and graduate programs. In addition to visiting departmental and faculty websites, please contact prospective mentors directly or our director of graduate studies, Ed Stellwag ([email protected]), for more information. We are happy to arrange visits for competitive prospective students and additional scholarship support may be available for the strongest applicants. Departmental faculty with expertise in ecology and evolution include: Rebecca Asch: Fisheries oceanography, global change biology, earth system modeling. Chris Balakrishnan: Avian evolutionary and behavioral genomics. April Blakeslee: Conservation biology, marine ecology, parasite ecology, biological invasions ecology and evolution. Michael Brewer: Evolutionary genomics, systematics, and bioinformatics. David Chalcraft: Population and community ecology; ecological aspects of biodiversity. Erin Field: Marine microbial processes, geomicrobiology, microbial genomics. Carol Goodwillie: Plant mating system evolution, plant population ecology and genetics. Pat Harris: Fish ecology and life history, fisheries management. Jinling Huang: Evolutionary genomics and bioinformatics. Fadi Issa: Neurobiology and behavior, neurodegeneration. Claudia Jolls: Plant evolutionary ecology and conservation. Trip Lamb: Systematics and phylogeography. Joe Luczkovich: Food web ecology and fish bioacoustics. Krista McCoy: Ecological development and physiology. Mike McCoy: Quantitative population and community ecology. Jeff McKinnon: Sexual selection, speciation, mainly in fish. Sue McRae: Behavioral ecology and social evolution in birds. Ariane Peralta: Microbial ecology, wetland ecology, agroecology. Enrique Reyes: Landscape ecology, ecological modeling, coastal management. Roger Rulifson: Fish ecology and fisheries. Ed Stellwag: Vertebrate evo-devo and cis-regulatory network evolution. John Stiller: Molecular evolution and comparative genomics. Kyle Summers: Evolution of color, behavior in poison frogs; evolutionary medicine. Heather Vance-Chalcraft: Community ecology. Baohong Zhang: MicroRNA evolution, comparative genomics, and molecular genetics. Yong Zhu: Comparative evolution and molecular functions of hormones and receptors.
