Thank you for your interest in our group! The mentor -- and the academic community -- you choose for undergraduate research and graduate school constitutes a very important decision, and I’m honored that you want to learn more about us, our research interests, and opportunities with my group here at the University of Arizona.
As you can see from our web pages, we engage in research in diverse areas: fungal ecology, evolutionary biology, systematics, tropical biology, community ecology, and more. In these efforts, we are driven by our curiosity, hard work, and passion for the natural world. Undergraduates in my group gain research experience, outreach experience, and hands-on training to the point of being able to develop honors theses and capstone projects. They, like graduate students in my group, are characterized by a high degree of self-motivation, attention to quality and detail, and a desire to learn and to share knowledge with others. Students often play a role as peer-mentors to others, and gain mentorship experience by working with summer interns, REU students, and new lab members. We hold weekly lab meetings throughout the academic year and engage in diverse social events as a group, and all members of our team are part of a shared endeavor while also conducting their more independent activities.
At the graduate level, my goal as a mentor is to provide students with the tools and support needed to pursue questions that inspire them, and to provide guidance as a means to help students achieve their academic and intellectual goals. Having benefited from several outstanding mentors during my development as a biologist, I take mentoring seriously, and this inherently limits the number of students I can accept: I wish to give each student the personal attention he or she might need to succeed. That said, I believe that a vibrant research program contains a diversity of viewpoints, backgrounds, and personalities. I am always seeking opportunities to help encourage qualified applicants with an interest in joining our lab. We have a strong commitment to social justice and inclusion in science and are grateful to be working, living, and pursuing our research on the traditional lands of the Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui peoples.
I encourage diverse and qualified applicants to apply to the Ph.D. programs in Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, or the Arizona Biomedical and Biological Sciences (ABBS) program -- or to the MS programs in Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, or Applied Biosciences.
I also encourage applications for graduate training via our new BRIDGES NRT (Building Resources for InterDisciplinary training in Genomic and Ecosystem Sciences), a program in genomics and ecosystem sciences that is rooted in diversity, inclusion, belonging, interdisciplinarity, and scientific excellence. MS applicants in Plant Pathology and Plant Sciences, or PhD applicants in Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology can be considered.
Feel free to contact me for more information.
Sincerely,
Betsy Arnold (she/her/hers)
As you can see from our web pages, we engage in research in diverse areas: fungal ecology, evolutionary biology, systematics, tropical biology, community ecology, and more. In these efforts, we are driven by our curiosity, hard work, and passion for the natural world. Undergraduates in my group gain research experience, outreach experience, and hands-on training to the point of being able to develop honors theses and capstone projects. They, like graduate students in my group, are characterized by a high degree of self-motivation, attention to quality and detail, and a desire to learn and to share knowledge with others. Students often play a role as peer-mentors to others, and gain mentorship experience by working with summer interns, REU students, and new lab members. We hold weekly lab meetings throughout the academic year and engage in diverse social events as a group, and all members of our team are part of a shared endeavor while also conducting their more independent activities.
At the graduate level, my goal as a mentor is to provide students with the tools and support needed to pursue questions that inspire them, and to provide guidance as a means to help students achieve their academic and intellectual goals. Having benefited from several outstanding mentors during my development as a biologist, I take mentoring seriously, and this inherently limits the number of students I can accept: I wish to give each student the personal attention he or she might need to succeed. That said, I believe that a vibrant research program contains a diversity of viewpoints, backgrounds, and personalities. I am always seeking opportunities to help encourage qualified applicants with an interest in joining our lab. We have a strong commitment to social justice and inclusion in science and are grateful to be working, living, and pursuing our research on the traditional lands of the Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui peoples.
I encourage diverse and qualified applicants to apply to the Ph.D. programs in Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, or the Arizona Biomedical and Biological Sciences (ABBS) program -- or to the MS programs in Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, or Applied Biosciences.
I also encourage applications for graduate training via our new BRIDGES NRT (Building Resources for InterDisciplinary training in Genomic and Ecosystem Sciences), a program in genomics and ecosystem sciences that is rooted in diversity, inclusion, belonging, interdisciplinarity, and scientific excellence. MS applicants in Plant Pathology and Plant Sciences, or PhD applicants in Plant Pathology, Plant Sciences, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology can be considered.
Feel free to contact me for more information.
Sincerely,
Betsy Arnold (she/her/hers)