Dr. Farrior advises students in both the Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior and Plant Biology graduate programs. Applications are due Dec. 1st, 2023.
All students in our graduate programs are guaranteed 5 years of support, including summers. By default, this is through teaching positions, but most students are awarded one or two internal fellowships during their time in the lab. Students are encouraged to pursue fellowships and to go after the research questions that most inspire them.
We also have funding to work on specific research projects, including our new project on forest dynamics, plant traits, and inclusive theoretical ecology. Within that project, graduate students may be interested in working on forest dynamics modeling, forest inventory data analysis, eco/evolutionary predictions of plant traits, demographic diversity, remote sensing data analysis, and/or other aspects of the project. Specific projects may include research questions about the scaling from individuals to emergent forest properties, the effects of forest dynamics on plant strategies and their diversity, and other related topics.
Other areas of research in the lab include studying the ultimate causes of species coexistence, the influence of individual-based competition on plant communities, causes and consequences of plant diversity, and applying basic ecological and evolutionary insights to global models of the carbon cycle.
Research in the lab is a combination of theory and empirical work. We often work with large datasets and also have local field sites and experiments.
Other professors at UT Austin with related areas of research and collaborations with the lab include Amy Wolf, Annette Ostling, Tim Keitt, Shalene Jha, Daniella Rempe, and Brian Sedio, among many others.
If you are interested in applying, please contact me to discuss your research interests and begin a conversation at cfarrior@utexas.edu. In your initial email, please include a brief description of your research interests, experiences, unofficial transcripts, and any questions you may have.