Prospective Students and Postdocs

As Director of Forbes Biological Station and an Assistant Research Scientist with the Illinois Natural History Survey I can supervise and mentor graduate students and postdocs.

I currently have a full lab and do not anticipate taking on new students until Spring Semester 2025 at the earliest.

Graduate students at Forbes can be academically based at several different institutions, including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Northern Illinois University among others, depending on the interest/needs of the student and project.

I’m broadly interested in questions about wetland birds, especially waterfowl, rails and shorebirds and their habitat use, and migratory ecology. I’m also interested in questions about how wetland management can be used to meet multiple bird related objectives. Given my interests in the application of decision science to natural resources problems I’m often involved in projects more broadly in natural resources as well.

At Forbes and amongst those who work with me, how we do our work and how we treat each other, is an important part of doing good science. I will work with each student and post doc to ensure that we have clear expectations of what they need from me and vise versa.

When I have funding to support bringing on a new student or postdoc, the ads will be posted here, as well as the Texas A&M Job Board and on Ornithology Exchange. I will not bring on folks without full funding support.

I am always happy to collaborate on proposals for funding with interested candidates. Please send me an email (auriel@illinois.edu) expressing your interest in a particular research question, along with your CV.