Like many other faculty in the Biology Department, I am always delighted to consider supervising highly qualified graduate students ... those with strong records but also with motivation, ingenuity, and vision ... perhaps even a bit unconventional.   There are more strong applicants for doctoral degrees than I can reasonably take as students.   So I consider applicants interested in terminal master's degrees only under exceptional circumstances.

Students in my lab develop their own projects.   We work together to obtain the necessary funding.   As a consequence, I do not usually hire graduate students as research assistants on my projects.   Instead, graduate students usually support themselves with teaching assistantships or fellowships.

This practice has advantages and disadvantages.   In the end, your project is really yours.   On the other hand, other labs might provide a quicker start and a better financial package during graduate school.

Students in my group over the past few decades have come from all parts of the United States and from six foreign countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and South America.

They have included about equal numbers of men and women, as well as people from many ethnic and racial groups.   We like human diversity as much as we like biodiversity!

People in my lab have often liked adventure ... intellectual as well as physical.   We think about everything and go anywhere to find our answers.

Graduate students and faculty with interests in Animal Behavior have offices and laboratory space in the newly renovated wing of Wilson Hall near the center of campus

Wiley's facilities include equipment for . . .

recording and analyzing sounds of animals (real-time spectrum analysis, digital signal processing and sound synthesis, field recording and playback)

field studies of birds and other animals (audio recording, playbacks, mist netting, radio-telemetry, photography)

We emphasize research, including experimentation, in the field. Students design their own projects and have always found funding for travel and supplies.

Students and postdocs have conducted field research at locations throughout the Americas. Wiley is currently engaged in research on avian vocalizations in tropical forests of upper Amazonia in Peru and Ecuador.

Other students and postdocs have worked close to Chapel Hill, including in the University's Mason Farm Biological Reserve, a 150-ha protected area of old-growth and successional bottomland forests and old fields, all just 5 minutes from Wilson Hall and the center of campus.

The forests of the Mason Farm Biological Reserve have a permanently marked 25-m grid. This site has two 12-hectare plots for Breeding Bird Censuses, conducted annually since 1976 and 1977, and has served for many studies of avian behavior and plant ecology.

If you think you might like to join my research group as a graduate student ...

• study my web site to see what sorts of research we are doing
• read some of our recent papers (available as pdf files on the web site)
• check what current and past students are doing

(1) a statement about how your interests might fit with ours

(2) a brief summary of your previous research experiences

(3) your college or university, expected (or attained) degree, GPA, and GRE aptitude scores

(4) individuals you plan to use as references

(5) anything else you might like me to know about you

... so you and I can get a preliminary view of the possibilities.