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Biosensors and Microfluidics Program

(c) 2006 
Kevin Lear
All rights reserved
Good students and postdoctoral scholars interested in studying optoelectronics are encouraged to inquire about research opportunities.  Students with experimental MS thesis work or those having taken some PhD classes, including transfer students, are particularly encouraged to apply although very good students with a BS degree will be considered.  However, Dr. Lear receives so many emails from prospective students that it is important for you to provide the right information in order to have it reviewed.  If you are interested in becoming one of his graduate students, please carefully read and follow these directions to speed the process:

To apply for undergraduate studies (BS EE degree), please see the ECE website.  You do not require an advisor to be admitted, so you do not need to email Dr. Lear.  After you arrive at CSU, you can contact him if you are interested in academic year work-study or summer research opportunities.

To pursue a master's degree without a thesis, please see the ECE website.  You do not require a research advisor, so you do not need to email Dr. Lear.

To pursue a thesis based MS EE or a PhD EE degree, you must be accepted by a research advisor before you are admitted.  If you want to do graduate research with Dr. Lear, please (1) fill out an online graduate school application (you can wait to pay the application fee until you get some initial feedback), (2) look at the listing of open positions in the Optoelectronics Group, and then (3) send an email to him at Lear.CSU <at> gmail.com containing the information requested in the next paragraph.  The Email must have a subject line that reads "interested in MS degree at CSU" or "interested in PhD degree at CSU" or "interested in Postdoc at CSU".  (Please cut and paste one of these strings to make sure they match the appropriate email filter.)  If you are seeking a postdoctoral position, please do steps (2) and (3) above.

Your email to Dr. Lear should contain:
(a) A brief note in the body of the email introducing yourself and expressing what motivates your interest in graduate or postdoctoral studies, (b) a copy of the following "Application for Advisor" information pasted in the body of the email and filled out, (c) your resume or CV either in the body or as an attached PDF or text file (please don't send any Word files due to virus concerns), and optionally (d) any papers or other work you wish to send (limited to 1MB) as a PDF file.  If you follow these instructions, there is an excellent chance that Dr. Lear will reply to your email, but please be patient as this may take a few weeks.  Any further correspondence should include your original email but without the original attachments.

Application for Advisor


Instructions:  Enter your information after each colon (:) below.  Please avoid adding extra carriage returns as these will be used to delimit the different fields (i.e. lines).  If a category doesn't apply to you, then leave the space after the colon blank but don't delete that line.

---- 8< ---- copy and paste following into your email message ---- >8  -----

NAME:
EMAIL  ADDRESS:
OPEN POSITIONS OF INTEREST:
DEGREE/POSITION YOU WANT (MS or PhD or Postdoc):
DESIRED START DATE (MONTH/YEAR):
DATE YOU FILED A CSU ONLINE APPLICATION:
COUNTRY OF CITIZENSHIP:
BS DEGREE UNIVERSITY:
BS DEGREE MAJOR:
MONTH/YEAR OF GRADUATION:
BS DEGREE GPA:
YOUR BS CLASS RANK (E.G. 3 out of 20):
MS DEGREE UNIVERSITY:
MS DEGREE MAJOR:
MONTH/YEAR OF GRADUATION:
MS DEGREE GPA:
YOUR MS CLASS RANK (E.G. 3 out of 20):
PhD DEGREE UNIVERSITY:
PhD DEGREE MAJOR:
MONTH/YEAR OF GRADUATION:
PhD DEGREE GPA:
YOUR PhD CLASS RANK (E.G. 3 out of 20):
GRE VERBAL SCORE:
GRE QUANTITATIVE SCORE:
GRE ANALYTICAL SCORE:
TOEFL SCORE:
DO YOU REQUIRE FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR YOUR TUITION (Y/N):
AMOUNT OF FINANCIAL SUPPORT, IF ANY, REQUIRED FOR LIVING EXPENSES/YEAR: $

The following questions may be answered with more than one line if necessary.
DO YOU PREFER EXPERIMENTAL, SIMULATION, OR THEORETICAL WORK?
WHAT ARE THE CITATIONS FOR ANY PAPERS YOU HAVE PUBLISHED?
WHAT LABORATORY EXPERIENCE DO YOU HAVE?
HAVE YOU EVER WORKED WITH ANY OPTOELECTRONIC DEVICES?
HAVE YOU EVER PROCESSED SEMICONDUCTOR SAMPLES?
WHAT EQUIPMENT DO YOU KNOW HOW TO OPERATE?
WHAT SOFTWARE DO YOU KNOW HOW TO USE?
WHAT PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES DO YOU KNOW?
WHAT HOBBIES DO YOU HAVE THAT MIGHT INDICATE RESEARCH SKILLS?

PLEASE DESCRIBE IN DETAIL WHAT YOUR SPECIFIC ROLE WAS IN ANY PRIOR ENGINEERING PROJECT:

PLEASE COMMENT ON YOUR ULTIMATE CAREER GOALS:

LIST THE COURSES YOU HAVE TAKEN AND YOUR GRADE IN EACH ONE.  (THERE IS NO NEED TO SEND AN OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT UNTIL IT IS REQUESTED):