(FAQ inspired by and/or taken directly from my colleague, Mark Fuge, at the IDEAL lab.

Job application inspired by city.umd.edu)

 

1. Can I do research with your group?

Prospective Graduate Students

If you want to work in the SyRRA lab, you must apply to the Reliability Engineering program and you must list me as a potential faculty advisory in your application. I supervise students in the Reliability Engineering Program (ENRE), which is housed in the Mechanical Engineering department. The lab is part of the Center for Risk and Reliability research group. Note: Students who have been admitted to Mechanical Engineering can transfer into Reliability Engineering easily, but this is only done on a space-permitted basis.

Take a look at some of our publications and then stop by or call during office hours so that we can discuss how you can contribute .In your application, I expect that you will discuss how your interests align with my work.

I do not advise students from the M.Eng. program (which is administered by the Office of Advanced Engineering Education (OAEE)) unless special circumstances arise.

Prospective Post-docs

Because of the level of commitment involved, I will typically only consider someone for a postdoc if I am familiar with his or her research (or if he or she is recommended to me by someone whose research I’m familiar with). If you fit both of these criteria, send me an email (prepend “Post-Doc Position:” to your subject) and include answers to the following questions:

1. How has your Ph.D. training prepared you for the type of work we conduct in our lab?
2. What joint research opportunities do you see?
3. How long of a post-doctoral position were you planning for?
4. Would the post-doctoral experience be externally funded (e.g. through a government or university fellowship), or do you require funding from one of my grants?

If the right combination of interests and funding exists, we can move forward from there.

Current Undergraduate Students

If you are highly motivated, you should come by my office hours to chat about possible options for getting involved in my research. Please check out some of our publications to get an idea of what we do. Generally, you will work on a specific project with one of more of the lab members so that you can learn what research is like and whether that career choice is right for you. I expect an undergraduate researcher to commit to one semester of 5-10 hours/week. You can get involved by either volunteering for fun or signing up as an official undergraduate researcher.

2. Can we meet?

During the Fall and Spring semesters, anyone can stop by my office hours. When you stop by my office, check the door position:

• Door wide open: Come on in and sit down, no need to knock. This applies even if I’m talking to other people.
• Door open, but only slightly: Knock first, and then wait for a response.
• Door closed: I’m not in, or cannot be disturbed at the moment. Send me an email, leave a note at my door, or come back during office hours.

If you just need me to sign a form and don’t have to discuss the form with me, just go ahead and say so. Don’t stand around or make small talk for 20 minutes just to get my signature. If we talked about something during my office hours that requires me to do something for you, follow it up with an email summarizing what you need me to do, so it doesn’t fall off my radar. Put “Note from Office Hours:” in the first part of the subject header to jog my memory.

I don’t want to take up your office hours. Can we meet another time?

No. Generally, group office hours are more effective than one-on-one meetings for several reasons: For classes, students often ask relevant and related questions, and can provide valuable insight on top of what I can offer; by asking your questions around other students, you’ll benefit from their experience. For course and requirements advising, this is even more the case, since students often know details about the curriculum that I may not. This also holds for job advice, research advice, course advice, and more.

If you need to discuss something confidential, then come by towards the beginning or end of my hours and let me know that you have something to discuss in private. At the end of my office hours, I’ll close my door and we can discuss things in confidence.

3. Can you write me a Recommendation Letter?

I put a lot of thought and time into each of my letters, and often get more requests than I have time to devote to them. Surprisingly, most of the time spent writing a letter is not the valuable “writing” portion, but actually keeping track of destinations and all the background things I need to write a good letter. So, if you want to maximize your chances of me writing you a recommendation letter, follow these steps:

1. First priority is given to students who participate actively in my research or lab activities. If you are in my classes: participate actively in class or office hours so that I get to know you.
2. Stop by my office hours or email me to get my permission first (prepend “Recommendation Letter:” to the subject header). The sooner you ask me, the more likely I am to say yes. More than one month before the deadline is great, especially in high-demand times, such as the first and last few weeks of the semester.
3. If applicable, ask any graduate student TAs or any Ph.D. students you worked with to email me a summary of the work you did for them and their opinions of that work. Have them put “Recommendation Letter supplement for your name” in the subject line so I can search for it easily. When you ask them, be sure to make their job easy by summarizing your work for them.
4. Fill out one of the following online forms. These help me keep track of your letter destinations/deadlines and provides me some more detail about how you want me to position the letter. This will really help your chances of getting the highest quality letter possible.
   • (Forms coming soon)
   • Undergraduate Scholarship Applications
   • Graduate School Applications
   • Graduate Fellowship/Scholarship Applications
   • Faculty/Post-Doc Job Applications
5. After filling out the online form, send me one email with all of the following documents attached or linked to (if applicable to the application):
   • Transcript.
   • CV/resume.
   • A draft of your all statements of essays that are applicable to your letter (e.g., Statement of purpose, Research Statement, Teaching statement).
   • Highlight the date that the earliest letter is due. I will submit all of them by that date.
6. Wait for my confirmation. I will send you one short email letting you know that I have everything, and confirming the number of letters you listed in the online form.

4. Can you participate in my Ph.D. dissertation/proposal/defense committee?

I am generally happy to serve on various committees. I prefer to be a helpful and involved committee member, but also have limited time, which means that I can only handle a few of these commitments at once. This is on a first-come, first-served basis, so it is in your best interest to chat with me as soon as you think you might want me as a member. If I’m already committed to too many students, I’ll have to decline, regardless of how well I know you.

I am fairly open-minded to any research that intersects my work on risk and reliability. That said, if your topic is so far away from my expertise level that I cannot provide useful feedback, I may have to decline your request. The best way to determine this is to either a) send me an brief paragraph describing your research and how my expertise would benefit your research, or b) stop by office hours to discuss it.

Once I agree to be on your committee you should follow these steps to ensure efficient and high-quality feedback:

1. Make sure to use appropriate subject headers at the beginning of any emails you send me. This will flag your message as important and will allow me to respond to you faster. For example: “Dissertation:” for anything related to your dissertation.
2. Two weeks prior to any formal talk that you want me to attend, please email me a draft of your proposal/dissertation/paper etc. Your file must include in-file bookmarks for at least the first 3 levels of headings. I expect you to proofread documents before you send them to me. If I request a printed copy, please print double-sided. If your document is double-spaced, print two sheets to a page.
3. Immediately prior to the above talk, give me a printout of your visual aids or supporting documents. I prefer slides printed 2-3 per page, double-sided. This helps me give you better and more constructive notes and feedback during the talk.
4. If possible, have someone there (other than yourself) who can take notes for you on any questions that we ask you.
5. Make sure to send me a calendar invitation for the event as soon as the event date and time is agreed upon. You should update that calendar invitation with the talk location and a contact phone number at least 1 week ahead of time. Be sure the calendar invitation is set to give me a notification 15 minutes before the event.

4. Did you get my email, and how long should I wait until I resend you something?

Professors frequently receive hundreds of emails a day. Here are some tips for improving the response time to your messages:

1. Come to office hours instead of sending me email.
2. If you need a response in under 24 hours, you should call my office phone.
3. Include specific phrases in your subject line: certain phrases get automatically flagged so that I respond to them faster.
4. Include the action you want me to do in the subject line: for example, I can process “Project XYZ: Approve Form 123 in attached link by Tuesday, 5 pm” much faster than “Re: Re: Form 123.”
5. If it has been a week since the response, don’t be afraid to follow up again. Sometimes, when there are lots of important things going on, messages can get lost or buried in the shuffle. So make sure to be proactive and follow up.
6. Get on my critical path. Response rates will increase dramatically.