Prospective Students

Many thanks for your interest in my lab. I typically take on 1-2 new graduate students each year depending on my research funding, available space in the lab, and your ability to secure a scholarship. Creativity, curiosity, and a positive outlook are qualities I look for in hard-working, motivated students. Broadly, I aim to foster independent yet collaborative scholars, with strong quantitative skills grounded in natural history and the ability to think across disciplines. If you are interested in working on a graduate degree with me, please email me well before REM’s application deadline and include a CV, list of grades and scholarships you have applied for, in addition to a concise (5-10 sentences) description of your interests and how they overlap with and compliment the lab’s research focus.

Securing funding is a key ingredient to being accepted into graduate school. Exploring all of your funding options is an essential step in applying to grad school, one that should be made at the beginning of your inquiries. Most grad students in my lab have secured a proportion of their salary through scholarships, typically an Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) post graduate scholarship (PGS) if they are Canadian or an international scholarship (i.e. NSERC, Vanier, or Fulbright) if they are an international student. There are a number of incoming student awards that may also be available to some students through SFU. I encourage you to apply for multiple scholarships to support both your salary and your research interests. If you are successful, I will compliment your scholarships with my research funding. See the links below for details and deadlines, which tend to be in the early fall. I am highly supportive of those applicants that have applied for scholarships before they apply to my lab. Finally, students in my lab generally compliment their scholarships with teaching assistantships and research assistantships.

I encourage you to come and visit SFU and to take part in one of my lab meetings to get a sense of who we are, what we do, and how we work together as a team of applied marine ecologists on a variety of coastal conservation issues. Please contact my graduate students who are running lab meetings this term to find out when and where we meet (Heather Earle – heather_earle@sfu.ca).

I also encourage you to find out more about our research by contacting my graduate students, reading our published papers, field reports and newsletters. After you’ve done your research, please feel free to contact me.

Positions CMEC graduates have gone on to:

Hakai Scientist – Marine Nearshore Ecology
Science Communications Coordinator, Hakai Institute
Hakai Postdoctoral Fellowship
Skeena Salmon Program Coordinator, Pacific Salmon Foundation
Ecological Statistician, Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Hobart Tasmania
Director, Institutional Strategic Awards, Simon Fraser University
Public Engagement Specialist for BC and Western Canada, David Suzuki Foundation
Biologist, Natural Resource Department, Tulalip Tribe
Manager of Natural Resources, Huu-ay-aht First Nations Government
Fisheries Biologist, Alberta Conservation Association
Systems Ecologist, ESSA Technologies

List of Scholarships and Fellowships: