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To Prospective Students

Selecting an adviser to work with on a PhD or MS dissertation is a difficult decision.

This is a relationship that will last beyond your graduate studies and can strongly influence your future career path.

Therefore, please do not take this decision lightly and spend time on making sure that you communicate your expectations and goals early on. Below, I have included more details about my expectations that may help you in your decision:

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What I Expect from my Graduate Students:

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  1. Ethics, integrity, and accountability

  2. Quality work: I expect quality and rigor in research, reports, and publications

  3. Work well in groups, respect for team members, and sense of responsibility

  4. Clear communication of goals early on and regularly

  5. Respect for colleagues

  6. Prepared for weekly individual meetings and professional weekly progress reports (slides) to provide update on progress

  7. Present progress monthly at group meetings to our research group

  8. Effective and self-leading time management skills

  9. Compulsory research notes for literature studies, testing, designs, discussions, meetings, and so on

  10. Patience with experimental failures and positive attitude toward challenges and difficulties in research in general

  11. I expect at least four papers submitted to a peer review journal before you finish your doctoral dissertation.
    These are typically chapters from your dissertation and they will be an important part of your learning experience.

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What You Can Expect from Me:

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  1. I will mentor you closely on your research topic, goals, and timeline of various activities. But I leave room for you to develop research skills independently and find solutions on your own. I will provide regular support and will make sure that you are on the right path.

  2. I will provide feedback on the courses that I think you should take at the beginning and end of each semester.

  3. In preparing your publications and dissertation, I will provide detailed feedback regularly and early on, but I expect you to put significant effort into the preparation of these papers that are mostly the results of your work. If English is not your first language and if needed, I may ask you to take a course or two on writing, which will be beneficial to you in the long run, and also make use of the services provided by the writing center.

  4. I will provide mentorship and feedback on your job search and preparation for interviews (academic, industry, or policy related, etc.). In order to help me prepare you better for your desired job, it’s important that you communicate your goals with me early on and notify me of changes in your plans regularly.

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