The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Kansas (KU-EEB) seeks applications from highly qualified and motivated graduate students. KU-EEB includes 41 faculty members and about 70 graduate students whose research focuses on three broad topical domains: Biodiversity and Macroevolution, Ecology and Global Change Biology, and Evolutionary Mechanisms.

Facilities to support graduate education and research include world-class collections in our museums, equipment and expertise in molecular biology including DNA sequencing, growth chambers and greenhouses, and extensive field station land holds for establishing controlled experimental plots or for investigating non-manipulated systems.

Successful applicants to our graduate program receive a financial support package that includes a stipend and tuition sponsorship. Doctoral students receive a five-year package, and master’s students receive a two-year package. The department provides support for travel to present results at national and international professional meetings. Funds to support graduate student research are also available through departmental endowment funds.

Applications from all qualified students will be given serious consideration; however, we specifically seek students whose interests match the descriptions below. Students who wish to pursue research in these areas are encouraged to contact prospective faculty mentors to introduce themselves and describe their academic goals and research experiences and interests.

Click here to learn how to submit a formal application for admission. Please contact Jaime Keeler, KU-EEB Graduate Coordinator, if you require additional information on our program.

Faculty members currently seeking new graduates students include those listed below:

Ford Ballantyne

Research in the Ballantyne lab spans multiple subfields of ecology but is unified by the desire to link robust empirical patterns to the processes responsible for their generation. Lab members develop theory and models, grounded in empirical data, in an attempt to understand fundamental ecological principles. Broad research interests often lead to collaborations across disciplines and institutions.

Research interests in the Ballantyne lab range from the study of single species population dynamics to the comprehensive description of nutrient flow through ecosystems. The ultimate goal is to link interactions within and across all levels of ecological organization to biogeochemical cycles in order to predict how entire ecosystems will respond to disturbance.

Sharon Billings

The Billings lab explores how global change perturbations such as rising atmospheric CO₂ , land use change, rising temperatures, and changing water availability influence forest and grassland carbon and nitrogen pools and fluxes. There is a particular emphasis on stable isotope ecology as a tool for soil and tree ecophysiological studies, as well as microbial ecology.

Justin Blumenstiel

The Blumenstiel lab investigates evolutionary arms races, selfish genes and epigenetics. Using approaches that include population genetics, molecular evolution, next-gen sequencing and molecular biology, the lab’s aim is to characterize evolutionary conflict in the battleground of the germline.

Rafe Brown

The Brown lab studies systematic herpetology, biogeography, and evolutionary processes of diversitification in island archipelagos.

Paulyn Cartwright

The Cartwright lab studies cnidarian phylogeny and evolution. In particular the lab is seeking a graduate student interested in studying the evolution of hydrozoans through phylogenetics and developmental gene expression.

Jennifer Gleason

The Gleason lab studies the evolutionary genetics of behavioral isolation between Drosophila species through analyses of genes influencing courtship behavior.

Lena Hileman

Research in the Hileman lab integrates phylogenetic, molecular evolutionary, and molecular developmental approaches to investigate how flowers have evolved such a diversity of form.

Mark Holder

The Holder lab explores phylogenetic methods. In particular lab members are interested in improving the statistical and computational tools used to estimate the genealogical relationships between organisms.

Kirsten Jensen

The Jensen lab studies parasitology with a particular emphasis on the systematics, morphology, biodiversity, and life-cycles of tapeworms. The lab is seeking a Ph.D. student to participate in an NSF-funded Planetary Biodiversity Inventories project to document the diversity of elasmobranch (ray and shark) tapeworms from around the world.

Maria Orive

The Orive lab explores evolutionary genetic theory, focusing on models of population structure and organisms with complex life histories. Current research in the lab focuses on modeling host-endosymbiont systems.

Town Peterson

The Peterson lab is comprised of a large group of graduate and undergraduates students who work on diverse topics in systematics, ecology, disease biology, and biogeography. Particular interests include studies of transmission risk of diseases such as fluviruses, filoviruses, and Chagas disease; phylogeography of bird lineages; and ecological niche modeling.

Val Smith

The Smith lab investigates ecosystem ecology and is recruiting a master’s or doctoral student who has interest in one or more of several research areas: (1) responses of phytoplankton and other microbial communities (including pathogens) to the eutrophication of freshwater and/or marine ecosystems; (2) interactions between host nutrition and the outcome of infectious disease; (3) the ecology of algal biofuel production; and (4) metabolic ecology, with an emphasis on the factors that regulate the size and cellular number of eukaryotic organelles.

Joy Ward

Research in the Ward lab focuses on understanding how global change factors influence the physiology, population structure, and evolution of plant species. More specifically, the lab seeks to understand the effects of global change drivers that alter plant resource availability, such as changing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, changing precipitation regimes, and rising temperatures.