Opportunities
A. Prospective postdocs:
Please send your CV and a brief description of your research experience and interests to Dr. Fernández, at fernanm@iu.edu
B. Prospective Ph.D students:
If you are interested in joining us as a graduate student, the first step is to apply to the Genome, Cell and Developmental Biology (GCDB) Graduate Program at IU. The application deadline for the GCDB program is December 1 each year. All the details can be found here.
Alternatively, you can apply for admission into the Neuroscience Graduate Program or the Graduate Program in Animal Behavior. To join our lab through either of those programs, students should also apply to GCDB.
If you have already been accepted into one of these Ph.D programs and you’re interested in rotating in the lab, please contact Dr. Fernández.
C. Undergraduate research opportunities:
1-Informatics / Computer Science / Engineering students or Biology/ Animal Behavior students. The main projects involve working with and expanding tools such as DeepLabCut and SLEAP to automatically track animal behavior. Experience with Python is required.
https://www.mackenziemathislab.org/deeplabcut
2-Undergraduate research technicians
- Responsibilities: Basic technical tasks, including preparing materials for behavioral experiments, autoclaving, animal husbandry, preparing and aliquoting solutions.
- Disciplines: Biology, Animal Behavior, Molecular Life Sciences, Chemistry.
Qualifications:
- Second-year students are particularly encouraged to apply. Seniors are not eligible.
- Experience: Preference will be given to students who have completed at least one lab course. Experience in a research laboratory is not required.
- Attention to detail and ability to plan and organize time independently.
All undergraduate roles are paid positions. All positions involve a minimum of 8 hours a week and a maximum of 15, at least for the first year. Applicants should submit a resume, an academic transcript, and a brief statement of one paragraph explaining why they are interested in working in the lab. They should also provide the contact information of two references. Applications should be submitted to Fernandez.mp.lab@gmail.com. Due to the high volume of emails we receive, we are unable to respond to all inquiries. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interviews.
Please note that if you use an LLM to generate your letter, it may include generic phrases or repeated wording that appears in many applications. This can make the letter less personal and less effective and reduce the likelihood that the applicant will be invited for an interview. We encourage you to use your own voice so that your application stands out and better reflects your interests and strengths.