Undergraduate Research Requirements
We usually have opportunities for Undergraduate Students to join our team. However, there are a few caveats to this, so keep on reading to figure out if you might be a good fit.
1). The lab is located in Roanoke, VA. There is a shuttle connecting the Blacksburg and Roanoke campus, but you have to add about an hour commute each way. Shuttle drop off and pick up times can be found here.
2). Please see the Student Research Training Checklist Section for requirements and trainings that are needed for you to work in any Neuroscience research lab. These trainings are mostly online, but will likely take you a couple of weeks to complete them all. Please do not reach out before you have completed these trainings.
3). We ask credited students to be in the lab for at least 10h/week divided up between two days. If you are new to the lab, we will ask you to volunteer first, ideally 10h/week divided up between two days. It is difficult to thoroughly train you in less time. If you enjoy working in the lab and are a good fit for the team you can take research for credit during following semesters. If your schedule does not allow for credited research you can drop your volunteer hours to at least 5h/week, for a minimum of 3h/day at a time if you team lead determined that you can be productive during this shortened time. Some exceptions can be made to this rule.
4). Your time in the lab has to be on Monday-Friday between 9am and 6pm. Consult the shuttle schedule for a closer estimate of when you will arrive and need to leave. Commute time is not included in the weekly hours requirement. It works best if you schedule your lab time into your curriculum at the beginning of the semester.
5). Yes, we do take summer students, but unless you can convince us that we cannot miss out on the opportunity to work with you, we want to get to know you beforehand. This means you’ll need to first work with our team during the semester OR you'll need to send a killer application that spells out exactly why you want to join OUR team, your time availability, if you are taking other courses and when, whether you want to volunteer or plan on applying for an Undergraduate Summer Fellowship, and if you are willing to work with animals.
Here are a few summer opportunities, but you might also want to do your own research:
6). Now that we have the logistics out of the way, let's talk about who you are and if you are a match for our team. Let's preface that by saying there is nothing wrong with you if you don’t fit the description. You just probably won't be very happy here and we are on a mission of training happy and healthy academics. There are many different research groups out there and they all operate differently, so here, we are attempting to save everyone some time and a headache by facilitating good matches.
Please apply if you are (or are seriously working on):
​
• Treat everyone with respect and kindness. See our Lab Values and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement on the home page.
• Freshman, sophomore, or junior.
• High standards for your work and your personal and professional growth. You are self-organized, complete tasks efficiently and in a timely manner, you are able to prioritize and handle busy schedules. Your work products are of high quality.
• Passionate about and deeply interested in our research. If you need a line item on your CV, a box to check, this is NOT the right lab for you. If you are more interested in curing diseases and treating people than in the biology underlying disease, we are not the right fit for you.
• Critically analyzing your strengths and weaknesses, be this in skill or in how you approach your work and life. Consider taking the principlesyou.com assessment to become more self-aware, extra points if you share your results with the team and incorporate a summary into your application.
• Creative and critical thinking. You do not only consume what is shared in the lab but add your own knowledge, ideas, and thought and communicate them to make our team work better.
• Proactive and independent. You have a note-taking habit that allows you to independently do work and find things in the lab after training. You don't wait for tasks to be assigned to you but find ways to support our team work after training.​
• Reliable and committed. You communicate if you don't understand. You distinguish what you understand from what is unclear and ask for clarification during the training, discussion, and task assignment.
• Willing to stretch out of your comfort zone and to endure failure but you do not repeat preventable failures.
• Open to feedback, honest about your thoughts, and take responsibility for your mistakes. You are ready to hear about and overcome any habits or behavioral patterns that interfere with your productivity and growth as a person and scientist​
• Attention to detail. This is a foundational skill for researchers.
• Initiative to go beyond the minimum requirements in the lab.
• Self-education: it is your responsibility to learn project-relevant facets, and to dive deeper into the technical or biological background by reading, googling, watching videos, and asking questions.
• Communication skills: We expect you to work on expressing yourself clearly and succinctly and to make your expectations and any challenges explicit to your team lead. If there are any changes to your schedule communicate with your team leads well in advance. You respect our time.
​
Make sure you are checking at least 80% and explicitly state where you see your weaknesses and strength to be in your application.
​
Please do NOT apply if:
​
• It takes you 3 days to respond to an email
• You need constant validation and support
• Research is not a priority right now
• You prefer thinking over doing
• You don't like working with others
• You need constant motivation and guidance
• You are not receptive to constructive criticism
• You are looking for an easy research project - animal work takes time and patience
• You have no attention for detail
• You cannot take responsibility for your actions and progress
• Your schedule changes all the time
If you can check all the points above, you will almost certainly get the opportunity to work with our research team. We say “almost” because there are circumstances under which we cannot take more students (for example, if we already have a lot of students in training). Especially if you are interested in summer research, you will need to reach out early.
Once you have completed all the requirements, please reach out by email, include an essay about your strength and weaknesses with regard to the requirement laid out above. Please also comment on our values, mission and diversity statement. How does this overlap with your values and goals? Include specifics with regard to times and research credit, and your availability to meet within a timeframe of two weeks.
Please Note: Your goal does not have to be to become a researcher or medical doctor. We are happy to provide you with a taste of what research is about even if you are undecided or have different plans, as long as you are meeting the criteria outlined above for the time you are spending with us.