Principal Investigator (PI; Rob Kozol):

Students should expect the PI to provide guidance and mentorship throughout their training and time as a researcher at SJU.

one-on-one training for experiments such as, PCR and RT-qPCR, behavior, immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, CRISPR mutagenesis (NHEJ and knock-ins), live imaging (GCaMP and biosensors), live-to-fixed imaging (molecular mapping), surface to cave hybrid correlation and genetic experiments and neurocomputational tool building.
professional development for your career choice that includes; writing and drafting grants, awards, manuscripts, protocols and program packets, Public speaking through presentations at lab and university research meetings, determining networking targets (conferences, meetings or local gatherings), biomedical and basic biology research program (MS, PhD, MD/PhD) applications, and participating in the NYC science ecosystem (internship, volunteer positions, community outreach).

PhD Student:

40 hours/week, 1-1 meeting every week, 2 lab meeting presentations/semester. PhD students are expected to work with the PI to develop structured projects, become efficient with established protocols in the lab (dry lab and wet lab), help train new lab members (once fully trained).

PhD students must publish a First Author publication as a requirement for graduation at St. John’s University.
PhD students should expect to produce 2-3 First Author publications in the Kozol Lab. This will be a mixture of original hypothesis driven experimental biology (e.g. behavioral variation, circuit mapping), hypothesis driven descriptive or qualitative studies (e.g. gene expression analyses), method development or improvement (e.g. automated neurocomputational tools) and/or literature review/perspective (e.g. conservation of emerging larval circuits).
PhD students should expect to write at least one training fellowship to the NIH or NSF. Fellowship drafting provides grant writing experience for the student, while opening up a possible funding mechanism for
PhD students are expected to help clean tanks, maintain fish health, setup crosses and mutational/transgenic generation.

MS Student:

20 hours/week, 1-1 meeting every other week, 1 lab meeting presentations/semester. M.S. are expected to work closely with the PI and senior graduate students to contribute to or develop a primary research project.

M.S. Students must collect and analyze data that will be written and submitted as a masters thesis.
M.S. students should expect to be co-first or second author on a primary research paper. M.S. students are encouraged to be as involved with the lab as PhD students, including husbandry, behavioral experiments, live/fixed imaging, and gene analysis (e.g. qPCR, in situ hybridization).
M.S. students are expected to help clean tanks, maintain fish health and setup crosses.

Undergraduate Student:

10 hours/week, 1-1 meeting every other week, 1 lab meeting presentations/year. Undergraduate students are expected to work with the PI and at least 1 graduate student to train and contribute to data collection and analysis.

Undergraduate Students should expect to contribute enough data collection and analysis to be a secondary author on a manuscript.
Undergraduate Students are expected to help clean tanks, maintain fish health.