How are thesis advisors chosen?
The Genetics Training Program includes 60 faculty trainers from 20 different departments. Students are free to work with any of these trainers, regardless of their departmental affiliations or the physical location of their labs. To learn more about the research programs of our training faculty, please visit the Genetics PhD Training Program. We encourage prospective students to initiate contact with faculty whose research is of interest to them. During the first week of orientation, faculty trainers give brief talks about their work. Subsequently, incoming students choose 3-4 laboratories to rotate through during their first semester. These rotations consist of 4-5 week research projects that give students a chance to experience the environments in different laboratories before choosing a thesis advisor. The choice of a thesis advisor is typically made at the end of the first semester. The decision is a mutual one between the student and the potential major professor. Some students fi
