Are you, or do you know, an undergraduate who has good math, biology and/or computer programming chops wanting to spend some of their summer getting paid to do research in these areas?

My research institute, NIMBioS, is now accepting applications from undergraduates and  for its Summer Research Experience program.   NIMBioS provides the housing and a stipend and two mentors who will guide students through a research project. The 2014 projects are pretty diverse and include one that I will co-mentor with fellow post-doc Keenan Mack on the Argentine ant supercolony.

As described in this Radiolab story, the massive scale of Argentine ant cooperation is astounding. But, as described in this (gated) commentary by David Queller, probably unstable. Our project, in short, is to model this instability.

If you know an undergraduate with a pretty good grasp of entomology, evolutionary game theory, and/or agent-based modelling skills, please encourage them to apply. If you happen to be an undergraduate who regularly reads this blog, chances are you are the type of person who should apply as well.

Having served on admissions committees for my former graduate program, having these types of research experiences (and strong associated recommendation letters) are a good way to convince admission committees and potential major professors that you know what actual science (as opposed to classroom science) looks like.