Working with Me

I’m glad that you’re interested in working with me! I receive many requests for mentorship and often do not have the time to respond to each one. Read this web page for more information on how to best maximize your chance for a response.

Who Am I Hiring?

As of Sept. 2024, I am primarily hiring the following groups of people:

Due to limited bandwidth, I currently cannot take on the following groups of people in my lab:


How to Apply

If you are a current UT student or prospective postdoc, please email me directly using the advice HERE

If you are a prospective PhD student, please apply directly to UT Austin before sending me an email. You have two options for applications:

Please apply to the program whose curriculum most resonates with you. It does not matter what your major was in undergrad. Please also make sure to put my name down as a professor who you are interested in working with. If the application fee presents a financial hardship, I am happy to discuss with you first about your chances of getting in.


How I Review Grad School Applications

I read applications in the following order:

  1. Statement of Purpose (SOP)
  2. Recommendation Letters
  3. ======= For most applications, I stop reading here =======
  4. CV
  5. Transcript
  6. (tied) GRE, TOEFL

After reviewing all applications that specifically put me down as an advisor of interest, I quickly skim through other applications in my academic track to see if there are any other applicants that may be good fits. I compile a short list of applicants and then conduct hour-long interviews with those candidates.

In those interviews, I ask the following questions as a starting point for futher conversation. Half of the time is spent discussing research, while the other half is spent on discussing mentorship.

  1. What is your experience is on all levels of the robot stack (mechanical, electrical, and computational)?
  2. What skills are you hoping to gain from grad school?
  3. Walk me through a hard technical problem you’ve faced
  4. What are you currently planning to do after you graduate with a PhD?
  5. What are you looking for out of an advisor and lab community?

From those interviews, I make a holistic judgement of advisor-advisee fit and make offers depending on funding limitations.

Tips


What I Am Looking for in a Lab Member

As a professor, my goal is to pursue my research interests by recruiting trainees whose research interests align with mine. I provide trainees with advising support (funding, space, advice, networking) so that they can accomplish their research goals. For a longer write-up, I recommend reading Section II and III of the MERGe Lab Expectations document.

This means that the most important thing I look for in a student is fit. “Fit” is a very broad term; it encompasses the following:

The idea of “fit” goes both ways. I may not be the best advisor for you, even if we share very similar research interests. Similarly, you may not be the best student for me if we are unable to communicate. The admissions process is about both of us trying to figure out who the other person is and whether or not we’d like to work with each other for many years.

As difficult as it may be to believe, a bad advisor-advisee fit is worse than not getting into grad school at all. We will both not be happy if you are doing something that you do not like for poor pay over 5-6 years. We will be especially miserable if we find that our personalities clash too much.