Plans After Graduation

To Ph.D. or Not to Ph.D.: An Interview with Microbiology Ph.D. Candidate Ciara Sanders

Posted on November 22, 2024November 11, 2024 by Haya Elamir

Showing the person I interviewed to add a face to the name and words

Headshot of Ciara Sanders, Ph.D. student. Photo credit: Ciara Sanders.

For this post, I decided to ask third-year Ph.D. student Ciara Sanders in Dr. Brooks Lab here at Princeton about her experience in molecular biology graduate school. She hails from California and is currently carrying out microbiology research for her Ph.D. For students considering molecular biology research/Ph.D. as a career, these questions may help answer any concerns you have, especially since medical school seems to be the popular option for molecular biology majors.

More than Just Building Toy Cars: A Conversation with Jeremy Kiil ’24 about Car Lab

Posted on November 6, 2024October 21, 2024 by Alexis Wu

Portrait of a young man with short brown hair, a blue checkered dress shirt, smiling warmly at the camera in front of Nassau Hall. — Jeremy Kiil is an alum from the Class of 2024 who majored in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He now works as a power engineer at Qualcomm in Raleigh, NC. While at Princeton, he was a member of Princeton Racing Electric, a worship leader in Princeton Christian Fellowship, and Vice President of Colonial Club.

At Princeton, I’ve formed close friendships with students across all years and departments, witnessing their challenges, hard work, and achievements, from difficult courses to their independent work and senior theses. When my friends often name-drop courses from their departments and share exciting insights from their day, I realize I haven’t taken many of those classes myself. This realization sparked a desire to generate deeper conversations about their academic interests, even if I don’t fully grasp all the technical details and concepts of their field.

One of these conversations was with Jeremy Kiil ‘24 about his experience in ‘Car Lab’ (formally, ECE 302: Robotics and Autonomous Systems Lab), a required course for all ECE juniors. To my surprise, our conversation wasn’t focused on the nitty-gritty details about hardware components. Instead, Jeremy shared insights applicable to all students. I found his advice on making consistent progress, staying resilient, and taking care of oneself as wonderful reminders for everyone. Inspired by our conversation, I wanted to document and share it with a broader audience.

Seasonal Series: Interview with Bjarke Nielsen, EEB/HMEI

Posted on April 26, 2024April 25, 2024 by Xander Jenkin

Bjarke Frost Nielsen, from Denmark, received his PhD in Physics from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen and is currently a Carlsberg Foundation Research Fellow Postdoctoral Researcher at Princeton in the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) within the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) department. He currently works on using mathematical and computational tools to solve problems in pathogen evolution and infectious disease epidemiology.

Following the seasonal series theme of “Niche vs. Expansive Research Topics”, I interviewed Dr. Bjarke Frost Nielsen on his journey going from a Physics PhD to working in our EEB department and all of the different topics he’s worked on along the way.

Dr. Nielsen shares, “In general, I have a very broad notion of what physics is. I don’t think for something to qualify as physics it has to, you know, involve Newton’s 2nd Law, be describable in terms of the Schrödinger Equation, or something like that. I think that physics is essentially the science that tries to mathematically tackle the aspects of our physical world that can be attacked mathematically. That’s more or less what physics is, right? It’s choosing the areas where you think that a mathematical description can really capture the problem. … It’s a very broad science in that way.”

Read on to learn more about Dr. Nielsen’s reflections on his research background in Physics and current work in EEB.

Journeying through Statistics & Machine Learning Research: An Interview with Jake Snell

Posted on April 24, 2024April 24, 2024 by Alexis Wu

Jake Snell is a DataX postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University, where he develops novel deep learning algorithms by drawing insights from probabilistic models. He is currently serving as a lecturer for SML 310: Research Projects in Data Science.

As I dive deeper into my computer science coursework, I’ve found myself engaging increasingly with statistics and machine learning (hereafter abbreviated as SML). Opportunities to conduct SML research are abound at Princeton: senior theses, junior independent work, research-based courses such as SML 310: Research Projects in Data Science, joining research labs, and much more. There is such a wide variety of research opportunities, and so many nuanced pathways that students can take while exploring SML research. So, for this seasonal series, I wanted to speak with professors and researchers who are more advanced in their research journeys to share their insight and advice to undergraduate students.

Research Communication and Community: Reflecting on the Princeton Correspondents for Undergraduate Research

Posted on March 22, 2024March 22, 2024 by Caitlin Larracey

Each month in the Office of Undergraduate Research newsletter, we highlight recent posts by Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research (PCUR) authors. This month, we are looking back on ten years of PCUR as we celebrate the tenth anniversary of OUR.

PCUR began the same year as OUR – with the first posts published in September 2014. We invited PCUR alums to share their perspective on their time as a correspondent, including two who were part of the very first PCUR cohort. Read on to learn about how PCUR serves individual correspondents and the larger Princeton community alike, and if this all sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, Princeton first-years through juniors are encouraged to apply here to join PCUR next fall.

An Interview with Kelly Finke on Finding your Way in Research and the Meaning of Failure

Posted on April 19, 2023April 19, 2023 by Virginia Cobbs

Kelly smiling in a red jacket holding a coffee mug

For this post in our collaboration with Princeton Perspectives Project I dusted off my blog-writing skills and had the pleasure of interviewing 2nd year EEB PhD student Kelly Finke. She uses computational biology techniques to study collective human behavior in Professor Corina Tarnita’s lab.

No Experience Necessary: An Interview with Delaan Nedd ’25

Posted on December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by Alexis Wu

Delaan Nedd ’25 (second from the left in the top row) and the Bocarsly Lab. Photo from Bocarsly Lab News.

As we enter December, it seems like summer is far, far away, but it’s a good time to start thinking about summer plans if you haven’t already. If you’re interested in research, there are numerous summer research programs whose applications are currently open (the Office of Undergraduate Research has a great list here).

For students with no experience with research, just getting started can be daunting. I wanted to hear from students whose first hands-on exposure to research was through Princeton’s research programs, so I interviewed Delaan Nedd ‘25. Delaan spent this past summer in the Princeton Department of Chemistry’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Chemistry (SURF-C) program. SURF-C is a nine-week program for first and second-year undergraduate students to work on cutting-edge chemistry research alongside Princeton faculty, post-docs, graduate students, and other undergrads. What’s exciting is that the research Delaan contributed to during SURF-C was recently published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Dalton Transactions journal—check out the full paper here!

In this interview, we discuss his experience with on-campus summer research both in and out of the lab, as well as how the summer further informed his academic and career interests.

Princeton from a Student’s Perspective: The Most Legendary Courses at Princeton University

Posted on November 9, 2022November 7, 2022 by Ryan Champeau

Set of four images depicting Princeton students. Top left: two Princeton students decked out in Princeton gear, standing back to back and smiling at the camera. Top right: Four Princeton students wearing pink jackets and dotted scarves smile at camera. Bottom Left: Two students sit on the green, one holding flowers the other holding a small bunny figurine. Bottom right: Three Princeton students smile at camera in front of a Princeton flag

Thank you to the best friends in the world for sending in their favorite courses!

“Does anyone know a good English class?” “I need to fulfill my history requirement.” “I am looking for a chill, creative P/D/F course.” Everyone is searching for the best schedule possible and I know that many of you are open for suggestions. In my last post, I wrote about my favorite courses at Princeton as a SPIA major interested in law and service (see post here). But, I understand that every Princeton student is unique, so I have spoken with classmates and friends within other majors to better understand the full Princeton experience. Thus, without further ado, here are the most unforgettable courses that they have taken at Princeton.

Graduate Studies and Careers in Public Service: an Interview with Professor Iqbal Zaidi – Part 2

Posted on March 16, 2022March 14, 2022 by Abhimanyu Banerjee

In the second part of the interview with Professor Zaidi, the discussion gradually veers away from his career, and we go into his advice for students, the courses he loves teaching, and what he learned about making plans and still being flexible.

For those who missed the first part of the interview, please read it here.

Graduate Studies and Careers in Public Service: an Interview with Professor Iqbal Zaidi – Part 1

Posted on January 31, 2022January 31, 2022 by Abhimanyu Banerjee

In one of my previous posts about taking advanced courses in Princeton, I mentioned that I ended up taking two courses with Professor Iqbal Zaidi – ECO 353 (International Monetary Economics) and this fall, ECO 322 (Econometric Tools for Research in Macroeconomics) – both of which turned out to be some of my favorite experiences at Princeton. I recently interviewed him to know more about his career and how he came to specialize in international macroeconomics. After completing his Ph.D. from Princeton, Professor Zaidi worked for three decades at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), working in several positions and going on to serve on its Executive Board and manage IMF offices in Africa and Asia. He is now back at his alma mater, teaching specialized courses in macroeconomics. He also serves as an A.B. Academic Adviser.

I am dividing the interview into two parts. In the first part of my interview with Professor Zaidi, I concentrate on his career – specifically, what made him join the IMF after completing his Ph.D. at Princeton. The second part continues with his experience at the IMF and we then segue into his life in academia and what he loves about teaching and advising in Princeton.

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