Fisheries Unit

I encourage students looking for a M.S. or Ph.D. in fisheries science and management that have research interest similar to mine to contact me regarding graduate studies at Kansas State . I will typically advertise assistantships as they become available, likely through the American Fisheries Society. However, I will also keep qualified candidates on file in case a project comes up. I will typically only accept a student if funding is available for a research assistantship. Therefore, do not apply to the Division of Biology for graduate school under me without contacting me first. Although funding opportunities will be varied, a likely focus of much of my research will be addressing questions from state and federal resources agencies.
	I am a strong proponent of side projects in graduate school as each student is the sum of their experiences. I believe it is important to broaden your knowledge by working with other graduate students on their projects, conducting side projects of your own, and projects with other faculty members, or state and federal biologists. Although not all of these are possible for most students because of time limitations, I will make every effort to provide students with opportunities for collaboration and side projects.
I also believe that professional society involvement and outreach is important for professional development. I will encourage my students to attend and present at professional society (e.g., American Fisheries Society) meetings. In addition, I will also encourage society involvement (e.g., committees, manuscript reviews, workshops, officer in society, etc.). In my opinion, this is a critical part of your graduate education and professional development
	Finally, student working with me will be strongly encouraged to publish their work in peer-reviewed journals. This is one of the final steps in a thesis and every attempt should be made to publish these results. Oftentimes, the data we collect is from public monies and we need to disseminate these data to the public in the form of scientific presentations and publications. Also, I encourage students to consider publishing popular articles as well.
Graduate studies in fisheries and aquatic ecology at Kansas State offers a strong mix of applied and theoretical aspects. The aquatic and fisheries faculty at Kansas State offer complimentary research interests and experiences. Other ecology faculty members are strong in landscape ecology, conservation genetics, ecosystem ecology, and population ecology. Finally, there is a strong statistics department at Kansas State that is extremely useful throughout your graduate career. If you are interested in graduate studies fisheries science and management under my supervision at Kansas State I encourage you to contact me.