Frequently asked questions about applying to the lab

Undergraduate and Masters research

Q: Why would I do research as an undergraduate?

• Perhaps you are the kind of person who is curious about many things, not satisfied with easy answers (or with what the textbook/instructor tells you), and eager to find answers yourself. Perhaps you are a voracious reader of scientific papers. Perhaps you like "tinkering", solving small problems (for example math or coding problems) by yourself. Even if you don’t know yet if you find research interesting, you may want to try it out.
• To prepare yourself for graduate or professional school. It is difficult to get into good PhD programs without research experience. The same is true for some master’s programs. Medical and dental schools also treat research experience as a major plus, especially if you end up as an author on a journal article.
• To get a recommendation letter for graduate school or professional school. However, this should not be your primary motivation.

Q: When would I do research?
There are two types of undergraduate research: part-time during the year (in parallel with your coursework) and full-time during the summer. For the former, I tend to require a minimum of 15 hours per week.

Q: Would I be paid to do research in your lab?

• If you are an NYU student, you can apply to the Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund. This requires that I already accepted you into the lab and that we agree on a project; we will then write the application together. You can use DURF funds as income replacement but not as income. In other words, you must show the DURF selection committee that you will be working less because of your research commitments.
• If you are an NYU student interested in long-term, year-round training in computational neuroscience, you can apply to NYU's Training Program in Computational Neuroscience. Again, you should already have joined my lab; I can then nominate you. This program comes with a stipend but you have to commit for at least one full year, and participate in training activities.
• If you are not an NYU student and want to do summer research in neuroscience, you can apply to the Summer Undergraduate Research Program in the Center for Neural Science. The program includes a "bootcamp" in wet lab skills. Those skills are not particularly useful for my lab but could give you a broader view of neuroscience and could be good preparation for later research.
• If my lab has funding available, I might pay you from lab funds.

Q: Am I qualified to do research in your lab?
Most projects in the lab involve a combination of human behavioral experiments, mathematical modeling, and computer simulations. You should be interested in understanding human behavior and its neural underpinnings, and enjoy doing math. Undergraduate researchers in the lab typically have a strong math background (at least Calculus 2 or equivalent) and some fluency in Python, Matlab, or C++. If you are not sure if you are qualified, just give it a try!

Q: How should I apply to do research in your lab?

• First read most of the lab website, so that you have a general idea of what we are doing. If your interests are clearly different from ours (for example, you want to do research in biochemistry or neurology), don't apply. If you are not sure, you might as well try.
• Then try to read some papers from the lab (typically from the last three years). Our papers are often technical and require a lot of background, so I certainly do not expect you to understand everything. However, a) effort counts; b) I hope that you will understand the main ideas, so that you can formulate questions about things you don't understand, make your own associations, or think of new ideas.
• If by this time, you are still interested, write me an email (weijima@nyu.edu). Never write a generic email in which you just change out the professor's name, some keywords, and/or the title of a paper; an email like that sends the message "I am insufficiently interested to try hard". Your email should make clear why you are interested in what the lab is doing. Describe your background, highlighting the courses and experiences that seem most relevant to our work. Describe in your own words the papers from the lab that you read, as well as questions, associations, or ideas that were raised by your reading. Finally, if you happen to have your own funding (for example, you are not an NYU student but your university funds you to do summer research elsewhere), please also mention that. I normally respond to all emails that demonstrate effort. If you haven't heard from me in a week, please follow up.

PhD program

The following FAQ answers are in part based on the excellent FAQ page by Yael Niv, but were modified to describe my lab.

Q: Should I apply to the Neuroscience program or the Cognition and Perception (Psychology) program?
My lab is part of both programs, so to work with me, either is fine. However,

• If you are primarily interested in understanding human behavior, Psychology might be the better choice. If you are primarily interested in understanding the brain, then Neuroscience.
• Students in the Neuroscience program are not admitted to work with a specific professor; they are admitted to the program at large and are free to work with whomever they find a good match with once they arrive. By contrast, students in the Cognition and Perception program get admitted directly to a specific lab.
• When accounting for the housing stipend in Neuroscience, Neuroscience students get paid about $9000 a year more than Cognition and Perception students. This is quite unfair but I don't know what to do about it. In the lab, I typically partially make up for the difference.

Q: What are the admission criteria?
Your application will typically be evaluated by professors whose interests are close to yours. When I have to do an initial evaluation of an application, I pay attention to:

• Your GPA. I will particularly pay attention to whether you took advanced quantitative courses (in math, physics, computer science, or statistics) and how well you did in those.
• Your GRE (where applicable). I personally care only about your quantitative GRE, as long as you can communicate in English.
• Your research experience. Strong applicants have worked in at least two labs for enough time to feel ownership of their project.
• Your reference letters. Letters from research advisors count for much more than letters from course instructors, unless you went far above and beyond expectations in the course.
• Your interests. There needs to be a good match with my lab (if you apply to Cognition and Perception) or with several labs (if you apply to Neuroscience). It is ok if you do not know exactly what you want to work on - you shouldn't make up a research interest that you aren't sure of.
• Your statements. I typically look for an ability to reflect on what you have done, to put it into perspective, and to see connections. Don't just describe what you have done (or worse, copy/paste abstracts from your projects).

In both programs, eventual admission decisions are made by a program committee, not by an individual professor.

Q: If I were to be accepted, can you provide funding for my studies?
Yes. All full-time PhD students admitted to the lab are guaranteed funding for the normal time of completion of their degree. This money comes from various sources including student scholarships, teaching assistantships, central university funds for student support, and research grants. The details of where your support comes from should not be of concern to you.

Q: Should I approach you in advance to ask if you accept any students next year?
Not if you apply to the Neuroscience program. Students in the Neuroscience program are not admitted to work with a specific professor; they are admitted to the program at large and are free to work with whomever they find a good match with once they arrive. By contrast, students in the Cognition and Perception program get admitted directly to a specific lab. Therefore, it is more important to establish contact with me around the time you apply. I often Skype with Cognition and Perception applicants shortly after they apply (in December or January). I might, however, still not know for sure whether I will accept students.

Q: Why would I apply to your lab instead of to a similar lab somewhere else?

• Each lab is unique. Among labs worldwide studying human decision-making using computational approaches, my lab might be a bit different in its breadth (from basic visual illusions to social decision-making) and in its emphasis on methodology (for example, we developed Bayesian adaptive direct search).
• The broader research environment is important. Both PhD programs have many other professors/labs working on decision-making and/or computation (see for example Computational Cognitive Science at NYU and the Training Program in Computational Neuroscience), which means that it is easier to take relevant courses, easier to have academic interests in common with your fellow PhD students, and easier to establish collaborations across labs.
• Both programs encourage that you gain teaching experience by being a teaching assistant in an undergraduate course.
• The broader environment also includes mentorship initiatives, such as the Growing up in Science mentorship series.
• Being in New York City means easy access to courses at other universities (through the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium), to internships in industry, to artistic collaborations (for example in the intersection of science and art, which many students and faculty take advantage of), and to opportunities for outreach and advocacy (for example through the Neuroscience Outreach Group at NYU, braiNY, or the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network). My lab in particular encourages engaging with society.

Postdocs

Q: Do you have any postdoc positions available?
Yes. I am looking for a postdoc in computational modeling of cognitive decisions, including strategic planning and social decisions.

Q: Am I qualified to be a postdoc in your lab?
I have had postdocs with backgrounds in computational neuroscience, computer science and psychophysics, applied mathematics, and artificial intelligence. I require strong math, strong programming, and experience with human behavioral experiments. If you are not sure if you are qualified, just give it a try!