Khadempour Lab

Microbial ecology and insect-microbial symbiosis

Join Us

Postdocs

I do not currently have funding to hire a postdoc. However, if you are interested in applying for a fellowship (NSF, NIH, USDA, Ford, LSRF, etc) and are looking for a potential mentor/advisor, and you think our research aligns, please reach out. If funding does become available to hire a postdoc for a specific project in the future, the job ad will be shared here.

Grad Students

If you are interested in doing a PhD in the Khadempour Lab, please fill out this form. In an effort to ensure that new lab members can succeed in their PhDs and to make sure that I am the right advisor for them, the process for being admitted to the lab is quite extensive. After you fill out the form, I will contact you if I think that you are a promising applicant. Next, I will meet with you virtually, then I will invite a short list of applicants to meet with the rest of the lab and give a short research presentation. Finally, I will invite the top candidates to apply to a PhD program.

 I can accept students through multiple programs:

  1. Rutgers Newark Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

  2. Rutgers Newark Federated Department of Biological Sciences

  3. Rutgers Microbial Biology Program

  4. Rutgers Ecology and Evolution Graduate Program

Note that the Rutgers Microbial Biology Program has a built-in rotation so you could apply to that program without getting approval from me first. The Newark Earth and Environmental Sciences program and New Brunswick Ecology and Evolution Graduate Programs both are direct admit, so please do not apply there with the intention of joining my lab unless I have directed you to do so. The Newark Federated Biology program is hybrid – there are built-in rotations, but I still ask that you not apply until I have invited you to do so. The decision about what program to apply to has to do with the availability of funding, TAships, and the suitability of the program to your needs, but these are all things we can talk about further down the line, if I invite you to apply.

If you would like to learn more about applying to graduate school, check out this site.

Masters

I am not currently recruiting masters students and will only accept them into the lab under exceptional circumstances. If your heart is set on doing a masters degree, then you should look elsewhere.

Undergraduates

If you are interested in joining the Khadempour Lab as an undergrad, please fill out this form.

I do not accept volunteer undergraduates into the lab – the students must either be paid or receive course credit. The form will ask whether you are qualified for the Federal Work Study Program (FWSP) or the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP).

FWSP positions are assigned during the summer so if you would like to join the program, you need to sign up the spring before you would like to participate.

To be qualified for LSAMP, you need to belong to a group that is an underrepresented minority in STEM. Whether you join my lab or not, LSAMP is a great program to join for research experience. You can apply to join the program by going to their website.

Finally, you can work in the lab and do an independent research project either for course credit or for an honors thesis project. In general, I would prefer that students have already worked in the lab in some capacity before embarking on an independent research project for course credit or for an honors thesis.