Approach to Selecting a Thesis Advisor

Choose one or more broad areas in which you are interested in conducting research. As an undergraduate it is important to maintain a broad perspective. Defining too narrow an area of research interest will limit considerably your options. For example, diabetes is relatively broad whereas finding someone who studies the effects of diabetes on the cardiovascular system would greatly restrict your possible choices. If you are unsure how to proceed in selecting an area of interest, you should meet with your BMB faculty advisor who can provide some guidance.

To assist you in identifying faculty with whom it would be acceptable to conduct your senior thesis, we have compiled lists including departmental affiliation, brief research description and a URL address for additional information. One list includes those faculty with primary or joint appointments in Biochemistry. Faculty on this list are also suitable for those students seeking the combined B.S./M.S. degrees. The other list includes other faculty who can serve as advisors for the B.S. degree only. Additional information about each of these faculty may be available by using the UA's Life Sciences Faculty Database.

You may want to meet with your BMB faculty advisor to help you narrow your choices and then contact those faculty remaining on your list by e-mail and/or telephone to make an appointment.

If you do not get response within a week to an e-mail, you should contact your advisor for assistance to help 'grease the wheels'.

Additional suggestions:

You should consider beginning this process at least 2 semesters prior to your planned start of the thesis so that faculty have sufficient time to plan for the numbers in their labs. For instance if starting your thesis in the fall, a year prior you should begin researching the choices, so that late in the fall or early in the spring semester you can interview. You will need time, after identifying your research director, to prepare your Senior Thesis Prospectus for submission with your Senior Research Thesis Approval Form.

You may want to become involved with a research project much earlier than your last year and seek to continue that work for your senior thesis. Accordingly, to facilitate your obtaining one of your top choices for labs, you may want to propose that you begin at least prior to the semester in which your senior thesis starts by enrolling in Bioc 392 or 492 directed research credits. In that way you can begin learning techniques and it is attractive for faculty to have students who participate in their labs for more than 2 semesters. Before enrolling in Bioc 392 or 492 you must complete an Independent Study & Directed Research Proposal Form.

Biological Sciences West
1041 East Lowell Street
P.O. Box 210088 · Tucson, AZ 85721-0088
Tel: (520) 621-5110
FAX (520) 626-9204

Life Sciences South
1007 East Lowell Street
P.O. Box 210106 · Tucson, AZ 85721-0106
FAX (520) 621-3709