Opportunities

Ph.D students: We are looking for two Ph.D students to work on diverse projects relating to bioacoustics and ornithology. Interested students are encouraged to apply to the Ph.D program at EOBU (please see the institute website for details and deadlines). Students with prior field experience and/or knowledge of physics are welcome to apply. Skill with coding is helpful but not mandatory (although new students will be required to learn this). Students must secure one of the national fellowships (UGC/CSIR etc.). See below under M.Sc students for more details. We are currently looking for Ph.D students to carry out field work in diverse grassland habitats and to study complex communication in birds. Please contact me directly to find out more.

Project Assistants: Please contact me if interested in a project/JRF position. The availability of such positions will be advertised on the JNCASR website, along with the necessary qualifications.

M.Sc. or BS-MS students: Prospective applicants are required to either have worked in our lab for at least one summer or have had field experience with either birds or bats, preferably with acoustics. Besides this, students with an interest in laboratory behavioural studies are also welcome to apply, as are physics/engineering students interested in acoustics (but are also required to have worked in our lab before). Because of the learning curve associated with instrumentation, field work and (particularly) analysis, I consider this the bare minimum to build the foundation required for a productive thesis. Skill with coding, signal processing and computational analyses will be valued. External students will have to make their own arrangements for accommodation, and will have to apply through the JNCASR website (please check there for details on the GRIP program). Students working with us prior to a Masters' thesis will be required to stay updated on readings, work on small projects and give regular presentations at lab meetings to ensure that they build strong conceptual foundations. Please email me any queries you may have, with a clear statement of interest.

Summer students: I accept summer students through the proper application channels on the JNCASR website (please check for details on the SRFP program). Interested students are requested to email beforehand with a clear statement of interest as detailed below if I am listed as accepting students for a project. On account of field schedules, I typically do not take students on for a winter project unless the student has worked over a prior summer and I am confident that they can work independently. This is a very exceptional case, however, so please apply in a summer cycle if applying for the first time. Summer projects will typically involve either local field work, or laboratory experiments. I do not, as policy, involve summer students in our field projects without prior experience.

Policies and expectations

A clear statement of interest in our work is a must, as I receive too many emails to reply to all of them. In particular, I look for specific enthusiasm for our study questions, for applicants to have read our lab's work, and for some indication of why they think the lab is a good fit for their interests. Form emails, copy-pasted emails or vague statements (such as "I am interested in your area of research") will not be considered, and will not receive a response. Prospective students will then be encouraged to interact with members of the lab, and design a research question (either stand-alone or an offshoot of ongoing work) along the major themes of the lab. I encourage independent thinking in my students, and expect them to gradually take intellectual ownership of their projects. For these reasons, I do not plan on running a big research group, and so will only accept very few applications each year.