MEM students
If you are a prospective student in Duke's Masters of Environmental Management program and are interested in our labs' research, read this.
How do I know if I should go to graduate school?
Attending graduate school can be a major life change that incurs lots of opportunity costs. While you should not typically be paying for school, the income and other opportunities that you must forgo for 2-5+ years to return to or stay in school are substantial. Entering a Master's degree program, let alone a Ph.D., is therefore not a decision to be taken lightly, and not a very good means to avoid the job market.
Graduate school is very different from undergraduate programs, because the focus shifts even more toward developing ways of thinking and away from ingesting information. Most of the time, your professors will not know the answer to the questions your research addresses. In some cases, they won't even know exactly how to answer the question. Figuring that out is a large part of a graduate student's education. In general, an MS degree is about experiencing the process of science from start to finish. For a Ph.D., the expectation is that the dissertation research will make a significant and original contribution to a field of science.
I very much support the idea of doing something before returning to school for a Ph.D.: complete a master's thesis, work in a lab as a technician, teach middle school students, or work at an government, consulting firm, or NGO for a year or two. Prospective students who have done so generally have a much better perspective on why they might want to commit to 5+ years of graduate student life than students coming right out of undergrad. My own such time outside of school is what convinced me that I needed to be directing my own research. Exceptions, of course, will be considered, but if you are still finishing your bachelors degree while applying to my lab, you should expect intense scrutiny about why you think you want to do a Ph.D.
If you want some other advice about applying to and attending graduate school, Emily Bernhardt of the Duke Biology Department has some great thoughts and resources about applying to graduate school, fitting into a lab, and life in academia here. In addition, the proliferation of science and academic blogs provides a lot of perspectives about both science and scientific careers. Some personal favorites that I find interesting and provocative:
Female Science Professor (no longer active, but still lots of great material in the archives)
Drugmonkey
Prof-like Substance
Jabberwocky Ecology
All of this is not to discourage you from graduate school - on the contrary. But it is important to know what you are getting into and why before you start to worry about which labs to apply to...
Graduate school is very different from undergraduate programs, because the focus shifts even more toward developing ways of thinking and away from ingesting information. Most of the time, your professors will not know the answer to the questions your research addresses. In some cases, they won't even know exactly how to answer the question. Figuring that out is a large part of a graduate student's education. In general, an MS degree is about experiencing the process of science from start to finish. For a Ph.D., the expectation is that the dissertation research will make a significant and original contribution to a field of science.
I very much support the idea of doing something before returning to school for a Ph.D.: complete a master's thesis, work in a lab as a technician, teach middle school students, or work at an government, consulting firm, or NGO for a year or two. Prospective students who have done so generally have a much better perspective on why they might want to commit to 5+ years of graduate student life than students coming right out of undergrad. My own such time outside of school is what convinced me that I needed to be directing my own research. Exceptions, of course, will be considered, but if you are still finishing your bachelors degree while applying to my lab, you should expect intense scrutiny about why you think you want to do a Ph.D.
If you want some other advice about applying to and attending graduate school, Emily Bernhardt of the Duke Biology Department has some great thoughts and resources about applying to graduate school, fitting into a lab, and life in academia here. In addition, the proliferation of science and academic blogs provides a lot of perspectives about both science and scientific careers. Some personal favorites that I find interesting and provocative:
Female Science Professor (no longer active, but still lots of great material in the archives)
Drugmonkey
Prof-like Substance
Jabberwocky Ecology
All of this is not to discourage you from graduate school - on the contrary. But it is important to know what you are getting into and why before you start to worry about which labs to apply to...
How do I know if I would like being part of the Heffernan Lab?
First and foremost, you should be driven by the need and excited by the opportunity to generate and test ideas about the natural world. Notions are cheap, but real ideas are precious, so we spend a lot of time trying to turn one into the other. We also operate on the premise that the creativity necessary to do so is not only an ability but also a skill that can be learned. Turning off your intellectual filter (sometimes leaving on the verbal one) and letting yourself think unconventionally is crucial to this. Most ideas come from somewhere, so we spend a lot of time putting two ideas next to one another and asking whether the confluence of them is something new.
Second, you probably should also be willing to get your feet wet. Although some of our projects are conducted on dry land, and others entirely in our labs and offices, most things we do involve walking around in shallow waters where most of the interesting things in the world are happening. Even if you don't work in or on streams, rivers, or wetlands, your colleagues will be doing so, and they will probably need your help at some point.
Finally, the field of ecosystem ecology and our lab in particular are collaborative, social endeavors, so it will help if are comfortable getting and receiving criticism, sharing ideas and effort generously, and serving a diversity of roles within groups. You needn't be the center of every party, or the person everyone turns to in a group, but you should know whether and how you play with others. In the Heffernan Lab, we work actively with several other labs on campus, particularly that of Emily Bernhardt, Martin Doyle, and (soon) Brian McGlynn.
Before you contact me about a position in the lab, try reading some of our papers. If the ideas and approaches in them interest you, then so might working with us. If you do decide to contact me, please tell me a bit about your background, experience, and qualifications and a bit about your goals and ideas for work in my lab. My own experience suggests that, particularly for Ph.D. students, actual projects are likely to (and should) be very different than your current ideas. Nonetheless, your ability to articulate questions and approaches is one of the things I am most interested in learning about you.
I am able to advise students who are admitted through the Nicholas School of the Environment's Ph.D. programs, and through the University Program in Ecology. I also advise Master's of Environmental Management students, mostly in the Ecosystem Science and Conservation and Water and Air Resources tracks.
Second, you probably should also be willing to get your feet wet. Although some of our projects are conducted on dry land, and others entirely in our labs and offices, most things we do involve walking around in shallow waters where most of the interesting things in the world are happening. Even if you don't work in or on streams, rivers, or wetlands, your colleagues will be doing so, and they will probably need your help at some point.
Finally, the field of ecosystem ecology and our lab in particular are collaborative, social endeavors, so it will help if are comfortable getting and receiving criticism, sharing ideas and effort generously, and serving a diversity of roles within groups. You needn't be the center of every party, or the person everyone turns to in a group, but you should know whether and how you play with others. In the Heffernan Lab, we work actively with several other labs on campus, particularly that of Emily Bernhardt, Martin Doyle, and (soon) Brian McGlynn.
Before you contact me about a position in the lab, try reading some of our papers. If the ideas and approaches in them interest you, then so might working with us. If you do decide to contact me, please tell me a bit about your background, experience, and qualifications and a bit about your goals and ideas for work in my lab. My own experience suggests that, particularly for Ph.D. students, actual projects are likely to (and should) be very different than your current ideas. Nonetheless, your ability to articulate questions and approaches is one of the things I am most interested in learning about you.
I am able to advise students who are admitted through the Nicholas School of the Environment's Ph.D. programs, and through the University Program in Ecology. I also advise Master's of Environmental Management students, mostly in the Ecosystem Science and Conservation and Water and Air Resources tracks.
How do I pay for graduate school (or get support for a post-doc)?
If you are reading this, chances are that you have some idea of how graduate school works, including the finances of it. But just in case, here is something really important everyone considering a PhD should know: you don't pay for it. In general, students pursuing science degrees should be supported by teaching assistantships, research assistantships (supported by grants, usually), and fellowships (this is independent support - helpful and prestigious - that can come from internal university support or from national organizations). Most departments, including those I am affiliated with at Duke, will not accept students who are without some source of support. Why? Well, it makes it harder to finish if you are financially insecure (not that most grad stipends are very far above subsistence), and, at least in ecology, there is little to no chance that you could pay back your loans on the salaries typical of just-finished PhDs.
So whether you are considering my lab specifically or not, be aware that you should have a firm understanding of the support being offered by the departments and labs to which you are applying. If you are looking for resources, the Duke Graduate School has assembled a very comprehensive list of graduate student support. Important programs for support of graduate students in our general areas include:
EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowships
NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
DoE Office of Science Graduate Research Fellowships
DoE Computational Science Graduate Research Fellowships
So whether you are considering my lab specifically or not, be aware that you should have a firm understanding of the support being offered by the departments and labs to which you are applying. If you are looking for resources, the Duke Graduate School has assembled a very comprehensive list of graduate student support. Important programs for support of graduate students in our general areas include:
EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowships
NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
DoE Office of Science Graduate Research Fellowships
DoE Computational Science Graduate Research Fellowships
What is it like living in Durham?
Durham is a small city with lots going on. Duke does a great job with its cultural calendar, but the city itself has a very rich food culture (including lots of farm-to-fork restaurants, diverse local farms, and a great farmers market), plus a vibrant music and arts scene, good pubs and breweries, and whatever else you might want. The NY Times did a recent 36 Hours In Durham piece that highlights some of this. Being a small city also means that Durham is easy to get out of (the Eno River is only 15 minutes away from Duke Campus), and the mountains and the ocean are only each a few hours away. Chapel Hill and Raleigh are also very close, so there is way more going on than most of can take full advantage of.
Are there openings available in your lab?
I am almost always willing to consider inquiries from prospective lab members. Sometimes I will have funded projects that will support graduate students or post-docs, and I will list those below. If I don't have specific support in place, I am happy to consider writing grants to support post-docs, or admitting graduate students under TA support. When the lab is large, additional graduate students or postdocs may saturate my ability to mentor effectively. If that's the case, I will let you know.
Current opportunities
None right now.