Occasionally Dr. Johnston selects a few exceptional students at the undergraduate student level to participate in ongoing projects in the lab.
Undergraduate research in the Johnston laboratory is taken very seriously. Students need to have completed at least a semester or two at UT and be able to commit to at minimum a full year of training and research. Additionally, we encourage students to perform research with us as a 3 credit lab course (BIO 377), which requires a minimum 12 hour a week commitment.
When positions are available they will be posted on the listsever maintained by the School of Undergraduate Studies. You can subscribe to the mailing list here. A good source of information on undergraduate research can also be found at this College of Natural Sciences site. Another good place to start is the Eureka page.
In response to this call for applications, students should email Dr. Rick Gray the following items: a motivational statement, a CV, and an unofficial transcript. Top candidates will be interviewed and top interviews will be invited to join the lab. If selected, a project will be designed that fits both your and the lab’s interests, and you will be paired with a current lab member. Volunteering in the lab typically consists of two components. First, students will perform basic histological processing and microscopy to analyze neural tissue. Second, students will have an independent research project typically associated with analyzing that tissue.
The students will be taught basic neuroscience, including (but not limited to): histological processing of neuronal tissue, light and fluorescent microscopy of neuronal tissue, image processing, as well as some scientific theory and rationale for their individual project. They are expected to participate in weekly meetings discussing primary literature in the context of their own research, write a written proposal of their own research project to be submitted as an Undergraduate Research Fellowship and at the end of each year present their project’s results to the lab.