Graduate Students
We are looking for an excellent grad student this coming year! We hope you can join us!
Graduate applications are due in December. Links for each program are below. If you you are interested in joining the lab, please contact Jenny before applying.
Georgia Tech is a great place to be a graduate student! Atlanta is a fun, international city with great food and nightlife. Georgia Tech has lots of great infrastructure for graduate students and a fun community, as well. Dr. McGuire can accept graduate students through Quantitative Biosciences (due Dec. 1), the School of Biological Sciences (due Dec. 15), or the School of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (due Jan. 1), so there are plenty of options depending on how you think you want to pitch your degree.
SEPL is an interdisciplinary lab that thrives from incorporating researchers from different backgrounds and disciplines. We seek to create a community of scientists with complementary backgrounds that will be mutually informative. Students or scientists with interests and skills in any of the following may find a good fit with the lab:
- Ecology
- Evolutionary biology
- Paleontology
- Conservation biology
- Geology or earth sciences
- Biogeography
- Spatial or landscape ecology
- Computational sciences– especially those interested in spatial modeling & model development
SEPL has graduate students and postdocs that are interested in the following areas:
- Range shift dynamics in response to environmental change
- Interactions between landscape and organismal dynamics
- Effects of changing climates on intraspecific variation
- Other relevant spatial ecology, conservation, &/or paleoecological topics
Some specific projects include the following:
- Microfauna paleoecology of Natural Trap Cave, WY
- Trait-environment relationships of mammals
- The climate fidelity of plants and animals
- Geographic range changes in response to climate and anthropogenic change
Currently, research assistant (RA) and teaching assistant (TA) funding is limited. Other opportunities and sources of funding may be available.
Tools & resources available
- Integrated stereomicroscope with camera/computer
- White light surface scanner
- Digitization stations
- Macrophotography station
- On-campus micro-CT
- Opportunities for radiocarbon dating experience (through partnerships with Lawrence Livermore National Labs)
- Computational resources:
- Server for spatial data library & data backup
- Cluster nodes
- Casting/molding station
- Field equipment for mammal trapping and paleontological research
- Screen washing station
- Dermestid colony
- A growing collection of comparative specimens + several regional museums:
- *coming soon* Fossil prep station (w. airscribes!)