The Martin lab at the University of South Florida (Global and Planetary Health Area within the College of Public Health) is seeking PhD students for the Fall 2019 semester.
We use combinations of field and lab work (including experimental infections in our ABSL-3 facility), predominantly in songbirds and exclusively in vertebrates, in each of the three study areas. i) causes and consequences of behavioral and especially physiological variation among individual hosts for zoonotic disease dynamics, particularly West Nile virus; ii) molecular epigenetic and physiological mechanisms facilitating range expansions of non-native species; iii) allometry in immune defenses and other traits that affect host-parasite interactions. Ideally, incoming students will develop research projects that complement one of these topics, but former trainees have worked on various projects from meta-analyses of immune costs, to behavioral endocrinology, to developmental plasticity in mate choice. Students accepted to the program will initially be funded on a 2-year fellowship through the College, which includes both a stipend and tuition waiver. Thereafter, support will come either through Research Assistantships on Martin lab grants, or Teaching Assistantships for online classes within the college. All applicants are strongly encouraged to apply for their own fellowships however. One of the most appropriate options for our lab is the National Science Foundation Pre-doctoral Fellowship (https://www.nsfgrfp.org). If interested, please send a CV and a cover letter describing your research interests and experiences to lbmar...@usf.edu by September 30, 2018. Also, feel free to ask questions about the lab orientation program in your email. Although the official application deadline for the College is November 15, this early date will allow us to determine in advance whether our interests align. You can learn more about the College and the Global Health Area at our website (http://health.usf.edu/publichealth/gh), and you can learn more about the Martin lab here (www.organismalbiology.weebly.com). The University of South Florida is a diverse research university located in Tampa, FL (http://www.usf.edu/). USF is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, marital status, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, or veteran status.