Welcome Letter

Dear Prospective Graduate Students,

Princeton’s Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Department is globally recognized for the cutting edge research conducted by our faculty and students in laboratories on campus and at field sites around the world. Our program is exceptionally encouraging of students to conduct research on theoretical and empirical hypotheses. We follow the biology wherever it leads—from the individual nucleotides of the genome to the savannahs of Africa.

How does our program support graduate student research? Graduate students join our program with their faculty advisor(s) who work at the forefront of their selected disciplines, which span a wide diversity of major problems in ecology and evolutionary biology. We encourage collaborations both within and between departments, with guidance from the primiary adivsor to help you work efficiently and effectively. To ensure that our graduate students complete their dissertation reserach, whether in the lab or in the field, EEB provides extensive intellectual and logistical support. We proudly have a high rate of degree completion, averaging in of 5 years of study. We support our students during their maturation into global citizens who go into the world and make a difference!

We support students with a rigorous and respectful intellectual environment, with limited teaching requirements and a reasonable stipend. Many of our faculty and students are engaged in collaborations with other labs on campus and with colleagues around the world. Importantly, students are not restricted to conduct research within their advisor’s research group; many students initiate their own collaborations within and outside of the University. A student’s funding is dependent only on making satisfactory progress toward the degree, whether that student is working with faculty on campus or mainly collaborating with scientists in other countries. We revel in the independence of our graduate students and we take enormous pride in their successes once they leave our department.

Thank you for your interest in EEB and we look forward to seeing your application!

Jess

Jessica Metcalf
Director of Graduate Studies in EEB

Metcalf

"Many of our faculty and students are engaged in collaborations with other labs on campus and with colleagues around the world. Importantly, many of these collaborations are initiated by the students themselves."