An Invitation to Prospective Students
M.S. Assistantship in the Feeding Ecology of Native Freshwater Mussels in the Columbia River to begin in August 2024
Dr. Gretchen Rollwagen-Bollens and Dr. Stephen Bollens, Co-Directors of the Aquatic Ecology Lab at Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA have one paid position available for a new master’s degree student to start in August 2024 (or potentially earlier in the summer).
This M.S. assistantship will specifically support a student to conduct research related to the feeding dynamics of native freshwater mussels (i.e., grazing on phytoplankton and microzooplankton) in the lower Columbia River. The academic position will officially begin in August 2024, however there is an opportunity to begin the position in summer 2024, prior to the start of the Fall 2024 semester.
The successful graduate student will be supported on a combination of Research Assistantships and Teaching Assistantships, and possibly Fellowships, plus full tuition waivers and health benefits.
Please visit our website for more information about the lab and our research (https://labs.wsu.edu/aquatic-ecology/). Our group is committed to supporting the professional development of diverse students in aquatic science, with a focus on equity and inclusion in all aspects of our research, collaboration, and mentoring. We welcome applications from students who will contribute to this mission.
Degree program: M.S. in Environmental Science
Deadline: For admission to our graduate program, we are currently accepting applications, with priority given to those who apply by January 10, 2024. For further information about the graduate programs in Environmental Science, and for instructions on how to apply, please visit the website (https://cas.vancouver.wsu.edu/science-graduate-programs).
Fellowship opportunity: In addition, there is an exciting new fellowship opportunity available through the National Science Foundation’s Research Traineeship (NRT) Program on “Rivers, Watersheds & Communities: Training an Innovative, Cross-Sector Workforce for Equitable, Multi-Scale Decision-Making Towards Human and Ecosystem Health” (RWC NRT) at WSU. This program trains graduate students to do research that tackles water challenges in the Columbia River Basin hand-in-hand with the communities impacted. For more information on how to apply, please follow this link: https://nrt-rwc.wsu.edu/how-to-apply/. **Please note the RWC deadline of November 8, 2023, which is separate from the priority due date for applications to the MS Environmental Science graduate program.
Contact: Please contact Dr. Gretchen Rollwagen-Bollens (rollboll@wsu.edu) or Dr. Stephen Bollens (sbollens@wsu.edu) for further information and before applying to either program.
Campus and Facilities: Washington State University Vancouver is one of five campuses in the WSU system, and is located within the greater Portland, OR-Vancouver, WA metropolitan area, near the Columbia River, Cascade Mountains and coastal ocean. The 351-acre campus offers new, state-of-the-art classroom and research facilities, where teaching and research are conducted in an interdisciplinary and collaborative atmosphere. WSU Vancouver is a welcoming campus to faculty, students and staff of all backgrounds, is actively dedicated to equity and diversity, and recipient of the 2019 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award from Insight Into Diversity Magazine.
The Aquatic Ecology Laboratory supports both graduate and advanced undergraduate students in their research projects at WSU Vancouver. Most of the students in the lab are graduate students seeking a Masters degree in Environmental Sciences or Ph.D in Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences. The projects that students work on pertain either broadly or specifically to the plankton community and its interactions with the environment. Studies are conducted at either the species level or may focus on the whole community. For more information on current projects, please visit our research page. If you are interested in becoming a student at WSU Vancouver, please check out the web pages intended to help you through the process. Some are listed below for your convenience: