I would greatly appreciate it if you would pass this announcement on to individuals who might be interested in this opportunity for grad school:

I am keen to find students who are interested in gaining experience as a curator of a dynamic biodiversity research collection (Florida State University's Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium; http://www.herbarium.bio.fsu.edu/) while working with me towards a graduate degree on the topic of  plant diversity and distribution, biodiversity informatics, and/or citizen science.  Staff members of the herbarium have played leadership roles in digitization of biodiversity specimens locally (e.g., as part of the SERNEC Thematic Collections Network, https://sernec.appstate.edu/, and as part of WeDigFLPlants, https://biospex.org/project/wedigflplants) and nationally (e.g., through iDigBio, https://www.idigbio.org/).  Students have traditionally held the position for 2–3 years and have TA'd or RA'd during their remaining time at FSU to broaden their experience even farther.  All students that are accepted to our program receive stipend salary support, full tuition waiver, a contribution to the student health insurance plan and annual travel allowance to attend conferences.  FSU has a strong ecology and evolution program (http://www.bio.fsu.edu/ee/ for more details), and the campus is situated in the beautiful Florida panhandle—one of the continent's biodiversity hotspots and a great place to be a biologist.  Applications begin to be considered on Dec. 1, 2017, but the final deadline for applications is not until January 31, 2018 (for details see http://www.bio.fsu.edu/grad/admissions/apply/).  Interested individuals should also contact me directly (contact info in signature).  For more info on me and my lab, including the fun stuff that we are doing with augmented reality technology, visit http://www.bio.fsu.edu/faculty.php?faculty-id=mast and http://mastlab.org/.  I’m particularly looking for applicants who are ready to be innovative with their graduate research.

Thanks!

Austin
Austin Mast · Professor · Department of Biological Science · 319 Stadium Drive · Florida State University · Tallahassee, FL 32306-4295 · U.S.A. · (850) 645-1500 · amast@bio.fsu.edu