Dear Prospective International Visitor,
Thank you for your interest in my lab. I welcome international visitors to my lab and have hosted many past visitors for periods of 3 months to a year. Such visits have generally been mutually enriching for both the visitor and my lab. In particular, I am strongly committed to working with visitors from Latin America who are studying restoration of tropical forest ecosystems.
Below is some important information to help facilitate the process of planning your visit. First, I have a standard application procedure. If you are interested in visiting my lab, please send me the following information:
- A cover letter (in English) explaining your research interests, why you want to visit my lab, what you plan to do/achieve during your visit, and what you expect from me. Please also include the dates that you want to visit, the source of your funding, and whether you funding is already secured or you need to apply for it.
- A copy of your CV (English, Spanish, or Portuguese is acceptable)
- A copy of your research proposal (English, Spanish, or Portuguese is acceptable as long as there is an English summary) with enough detail that I can understand the experimental design
- The names and contacts for 2-3 references.
I will review these materials and then if there seems to be a good fit and timing of your visit with my lab, I will schedule a time to talk with you via Zoom.
I do not mean to intimidate potential visitors, but I want to clarify a few points in advance which may affect whether or not you want to visit my lab.
- Visitors are always welcome to participate in my lab meeting (usually meets once per week). Typically I meet with visiting students once a week for 30-60 min. to discuss data analysis or papers they are working on and then the visitors work individually on the project until the next meeting. We can meet less frequently (and I would anticipate less frequent meetings for visiting senior researchers), but my schedule does not permit me to meet more frequently with students. If an appropriate course is offered during the quarter visitors are at UCSC they can usually audit courses (but it costs a great deal to enroll for official credit), but we have a fairly small number of graduate course offerings at UCSC.
- UC Santa Cruz is scheduled on the quarter system, which means that courses, as well as most other activities run during fall quarter (late September-mid-December), winter (early January to late March), and spring quarter (early April to mid-June) so it is best if you time your visits to come for one or more quarters. During the summer (mid-June through mid-September) I generally do not accept visitors since I am typically away from campus the majority of the time.
- I do not currently have any funding for visitors so you will need to provide your own funding. The U.S. State Department requires visitors to demonstrate $1,800/month in grants or savings for a single person (more if your partner or family will accompany you) to get a visa.
- Santa Cruz is a beautiful, but quite expensive, town. The minimum cost for renting a room in a house is typically at least $1000/month. If I agree to host you, I will help you to find housing.
- You must start the visa request process at least 4 months in advance of when you want to come! It is a complicated process which requires a great deal of paperwork. If it is now less than 4 months before you want to arrive there is nothing I can do to expedite the visa process.
- Visitors must be able to speak some English and be confident enough to speak English even if it is difficult for you. I have found that the willingness to speak (even if it is with a lot of mistakes) is often just as important as how well you speak when you arrive. In my lab, we do our best to welcome visitors and look forward to you interacting fully in discussions and occasional social activities.
- Visitors must have a solid grounding in statistics. I’m happy to give some feedback on specific statistical analysis, but I cannot teach you statistics during a short visit and my statistics skills are rather dated at this point.
Thanks for reading through this long letter. If you still want to visit then please send me the requested material and I’ll reply to you once I have a chance to review it.
All the best,
Karen Holl
Thank you for your interest in my lab. I welcome international visitors to my lab and have hosted many past visitors for periods of 3 months to a year. Such visits have generally been mutually enriching for both the visitor and my lab. In particular, I am strongly committed to working with visitors from Latin America who are studying restoration of tropical forest ecosystems.
Below is some important information to help facilitate the process of planning your visit. First, I have a standard application procedure. If you are interested in visiting my lab, please send me the following information:
- A cover letter (in English) explaining your research interests, why you want to visit my lab, what you plan to do/achieve during your visit, and what you expect from me. Please also include the dates that you want to visit, the source of your funding, and whether you funding is already secured or you need to apply for it.
- A copy of your CV (English, Spanish, or Portuguese is acceptable)
- A copy of your research proposal (English, Spanish, or Portuguese is acceptable as long as there is an English summary) with enough detail that I can understand the experimental design
- The names and contacts for 2-3 references.
I will review these materials and then if there seems to be a good fit and timing of your visit with my lab, I will schedule a time to talk with you via Zoom.
I do not mean to intimidate potential visitors, but I want to clarify a few points in advance which may affect whether or not you want to visit my lab.
- Visitors are always welcome to participate in my lab meeting (usually meets once per week). Typically I meet with visiting students once a week for 30-60 min. to discuss data analysis or papers they are working on and then the visitors work individually on the project until the next meeting. We can meet less frequently (and I would anticipate less frequent meetings for visiting senior researchers), but my schedule does not permit me to meet more frequently with students. If an appropriate course is offered during the quarter visitors are at UCSC they can usually audit courses (but it costs a great deal to enroll for official credit), but we have a fairly small number of graduate course offerings at UCSC.
- UC Santa Cruz is scheduled on the quarter system, which means that courses, as well as most other activities run during fall quarter (late September-mid-December), winter (early January to late March), and spring quarter (early April to mid-June) so it is best if you time your visits to come for one or more quarters. During the summer (mid-June through mid-September) I generally do not accept visitors since I am typically away from campus the majority of the time.
- I do not currently have any funding for visitors so you will need to provide your own funding. The U.S. State Department requires visitors to demonstrate $1,800/month in grants or savings for a single person (more if your partner or family will accompany you) to get a visa.
- Santa Cruz is a beautiful, but quite expensive, town. The minimum cost for renting a room in a house is typically at least $1000/month. If I agree to host you, I will help you to find housing.
- You must start the visa request process at least 4 months in advance of when you want to come! It is a complicated process which requires a great deal of paperwork. If it is now less than 4 months before you want to arrive there is nothing I can do to expedite the visa process.
- Visitors must be able to speak some English and be confident enough to speak English even if it is difficult for you. I have found that the willingness to speak (even if it is with a lot of mistakes) is often just as important as how well you speak when you arrive. In my lab, we do our best to welcome visitors and look forward to you interacting fully in discussions and occasional social activities.
- Visitors must have a solid grounding in statistics. I’m happy to give some feedback on specific statistical analysis, but I cannot teach you statistics during a short visit and my statistics skills are rather dated at this point.
Thanks for reading through this long letter. If you still want to visit then please send me the requested material and I’ll reply to you once I have a chance to review it.
All the best,
Karen Holl