Career Training Opportunities:

Chapel Hill has a terrific scientific environment, and it's a really nice place to live [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. We've got an exceptionally strong cytoskeletal motility community and a growing C. elegans community. The lab is well equipped for standard techniques and especially well equipped for microscopy, with plenty of access to live fluorescence imaging microscopes (including two spinning disk confocals in the lab, one set up for TIRF as well). People in the lab generally work more independently than in typical cell, molecular, and development labs, in a lab environment that is diverse, highly interactive, intellectually stimulating, productive and fun. Bob tries to break the typical mentoring-or-independence choice that trainees make when choosing labs by striving to provide an environment with tons of input and mentoring and tons of independence to take projects in creative new directions.

Postdoc applicants
***A postdoc position is currently available*** If you are considering applying, please contact Bob as early as possible to begin discussing your ideas for projects. Applicants often contact me as long as a year in advance. Postdocs in the lab usually propose and steer their own projects, although in a lively and interactive atmosphere, with frequent and active input from me, from the whole lab, and from the wider local community. Projects that further develop current lines of work in the lab are suitable, but so are projects that address completely unrelated questions — so long as you'd be well-equipped here for what you'd like to pursue. In general I'm happy to brainstorm with applicants or potential applicants about possible projects, always using the applicant's own interests as a jumping off point.

Grad school applicants
Grad students enter through UNC's Biological & Biomedical Sciences Program, a flexible program that allows students to do lab rotations in any labs in Biology and/or medical school departments during their first year. Students in this program join a degree-granting program after their first year. For most students who join the lab, this program is Genetics & Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Physiology, or Biology. All admitted students are guaranteed funding support for at least five years (the typical length of a PhD) from the program and from the lab's grants. The lab is also associated with multiple training programs that contribute to funding existing students. PhD students these days generally move on to a much more diverse set of careers [1] than in the past, and students in the lab with diverse kinds of ambitious plans, including plans to pursue tenure-track faculty positions running their own labs, are supported toward their goals.

Undergraduate applicants
We do basic research that identifies new mechanisms in cell and developmental biology — because creative work aimed at understanding fundamental mechanisms is a fascinating, constructive addiction, and because it's important [1] [2]. The lab usually takes on only one undergraduate at a time, starting at the middle of their junior year or earlier, for intensive training to carry out an independent research project. We are especially interested in training students who can commit to conducting research each semester until graduation and students who are considering pursuing research as a career. Research can be conducted for course credit during fall and spring, and funding is often available to continue research during the summer in a full-time paid position. To apply, please read the Biology Department's undergraduate research pages and send a resume to Bob Goldstein.