SIU’s Center for Ecology is offering quite the rare bird for students with a major in the field of ecology this summer; a paid research position at SIU’s campus in sunny Carbondale, Illinois (which is actually pretty significant, because of southern Illinois’s unique geographic diversity of prairie, forest, wetland, floodplain, and river systems)! The topic for this golden ticket of an opportunity? Convergence Ecology, with the goal being to “provide students hands-on training with a variety of tools used to conduct ecological research across a spectrum of research areas…and processes” including soil, environmental degradation, ecological pattern and variability, and a plethora of other pursuits for the ecological mind.

The program will be 10 weeks, running from May 28th to August 5th, and will culminate in “The Colloquium of Undergraduate Research in Ecology” (or, for those musically minded, The CURE). The 10 students undergraduate students that are accepted to the program will receive a $5,000 stipend, $800 for the purpose of purchasing research supplies, and free housing, via SIU campus housing.

Limitations are rather limited, with any undergraduate, U.S. citizens not graduated by Summer 2013 eligible to apply. (I’m not sure exactly why most of those scholarships/research position require you to be a U.S. citizen, but I don’t make the rules)

Interested? Well, the deadline for application is March 15, and potential applicants will have to turn in an online application, which can be found via this link, their unofficial transcript, and two letters of recommendation, preferably neither of which from your mother.

Should you have any questions, you are encouraged to contact Clayton K. Nielson or Sara G. Baer. Here’s their contact info:

Clayton K. Nielson
618-453-6930
kezo92@siu.edu

Sara G. Baer
618-453-3228
sgbaer@siu.edu