Opportunities
We are building a group from the ground up. Curiosity and persistence matter more to us than a perfect CV.
What we look for
People who ask good questions, follow them carefully, and make the people around them better.
Wildlife disease work asks you to move between a molecular bench, a marsh at dawn, a script that will not run, and a meeting with agency partners who need an answer next month. Nobody arrives able to do all of that. What we look for instead is genuine curiosity about host–pathogen systems, comfort with being a beginner, care in how you handle data and animals, and generosity toward your labmates.
Prior experience in molecular work, field ornithology, R, or decision analysis is welcome but not required. Tell us what you want to learn.
Positions
Students join through the Biological and Environmental Sciences graduate program at URI. Projects can be built around avian disease evolution and ecology, avian influenza host dynamics, immunogenetics and transcriptomics, or disease-informed conservation decision making (in waterfowl, waterbirds, or other declining species).
Before you apply: please reach out via email; here is what to include.
URI undergraduates can join for independent research, research credit, honors projects, work-study, or volunteer hours. Roles range from lab work (extractions, assays, sample processing) to fieldwork and data analysis. This is a real research role, not dishwashing.
To apply: if you would like to be considered for a position when one becomes available, fill out the interest form.
Funded postdoctoral positions are announced here and on relevant listservs when available. We are also glad to co-develop fellowship applications (NSF, USDA, Smith, and similar) with strong candidates whose interests overlap with ours.
Reach out well before fellowship deadlines; good proposals take months.
Prospective graduate students
If you are interested in applying to be a graduate student, email your resume or CV to Johanna at j_harvey_at_uri.edu. Your email should include descriptions of:
You do not need a fully formed project. A clear question you are curious about is plenty. Johanna reads every email, though replies during field season can be slow; a polite follow-up after a week or two is welcome, not annoying.
Lab culture
Science is better when more kinds of people are doing it, and when the people doing it are treated well.
Johanna found research through mentors who opened a door she did not know existed. That shapes how this lab runs: we take mentoring seriously, we make expectations explicit rather than assumed, and we work to build an environment where people from backgrounds underrepresented in ecology and evolutionary biology can do their best work.
In practice that means regular one-on-ones, co-authorship conversations early rather than late, protected time for writing and skill-building, support for conference travel, and an honest conversation about career paths inside and outside academia. It also means normal working hours, real vacations, and asking for help being treated as a strength.
We are committed to open science and data sharing, and to public engagement that makes wildlife disease research useful outside the university.
Email Johanna directly, or use the contact form. Tell us what you are curious about.
