Join Us!

Prospective undergraduates, graduate students, or postdocs should contact Karen Daniels about current or upcoming employment opportunities.

Current openings (Fall 2024) for local or visiting undergraduate or graduate students: mechanics of granular materials, with connections to statistical physics, rheology, acoustics, and/or geophysics and planetary science. Primarily laboratory research, with close connections to theoretical and modeling approaches which can be developed according to student interest.

Undergraduates: Consider applying for a Undergraduate Research Grant, and/or speak to me in person about other research opportunities during the school year or summer. These are usually paid through either grant funds or through Work-Study appointments. I am also happy to support student applications for summer internships through the NC Space Grant (due March each year) and McNair Scholars programs. You can also find job openings posted to the department’s “Research Opportunities” forum at go.ncsu.edu/py-ugrad-research (log in with your UnityID), which also has information about signing up for PY499 (research for credit, can serve as a Technical Electives or for Honors/Capstone credit).

Prospective graduate students: Please visit the Physics Graduate Program website for information about how to apply to the PhD program in the NC State Physics Department. Incoming students often have a teaching assistant appointment (TA) for the first year or two, and are then supported on a research grant.

Current and incoming graduate students: Please feel welcome to join our weekly lab meetings to learn more about our work, or just stop by to talk. Students from our group have successfully received NSF Graduate Research Fellowships (due October each year) and NC Space Grants (due March each year); I am always happy to work with students on developing their grant-writing skills. Our currently-funded openings are always listed here, and these currently center around three NSF-funded projects: CMMI-2323341, DMR-2104986, EAR-2244615.

Prospective postdocs from outside the US: As former Fulbright Scholar, I can strongly recommend their exchange program and as a member of the Humboldt Foundation network, I am able to sponsor applications for their Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship program.