Exploring Potential Faculty Advisors

[emwa]

Hi all,

What advice do you have for searching through PhD program websites with regards to finding potential faculty to work with? How specifically do your research interests need to align with theirs? And what level of professor (assistant, associate, etc.) should you be looking for? Any advice on reaching out to them prior to applying? 

Also, what effect would having defined but pretty varied research interests have on an application and a department's perception of your "fit"? For example, public policy and African development.

[casbahboy]

I share these questions

[Dwar]

Hey, So i'll try and answer some of these questions. So in terms of locating professors who share fit, the rule of thumb that I've been following is within the same research area. Now i'm talking about a specific sub-sub research area. The reason for this is that while you may have a general idea about what you'll want to research, you don't know the exact question yet. While you may present a question in your SOP, the faculty are well aware that it will most likely change as you progress throughout grad school, so don't stress to much about that. 

For example, I am interested in asymmetric insurgencies and terrorism. So that't a sub-field within security studies which itself is a sub-field within IR. Now I do have a specific question within that field that I am looking for, but TBH I mainly just looked for professors who are studying either asymmetric insurgencies, terrorism, or even stuff like civil wars/conflicts (which often devolve into asymmetric insurgencies). I made sure that each of the schools that I applied to had at least two faculty members who were researching within that sub sub field. While some of them are more aligned with what my current question is, they all at least are researching that topic. So while it doesn't need to align directly, you need to be able to show how their past/current work will help or is related to the question or research area that you are looking at. 

In terms of the contacting question, it varies. It doesn't hurt to reach out and contact them, but TBH it doesn't always help either. The worst thing that can happen is that they do not respond, which you should not take personally. But do NOT email them again and again if they do not respond. In our field we do not apply to a direct professor, so annoying them that much is unnecessary. If you do email them I would essentially put the "fit" section down. Talk about their research, what you like about it, and how it fits into your own research area/proposed question. Bring up specific stuff that they have written to show that you actually know what you're talking about. 

In terms of your last question, about cross-departmental work, I honestly don't know how it would be reviewed by the adcomm. I would caution against going too strong on that unless the school/department itself encourages it. I know that many programs have "public policy" as a subfield, so if you were applying to one of those schools then I would say that talking about your policy interest makes sense. Some programs also offer like joint PhD programs with other in house departments. The one example that I can think of off hand is Penn State which offers joint PhD programs with like African and Asian studies. I would check out those types of programs. 

Hope this helps!

[emwa]

On 12/21/2019 at 8:52 PM, Dwar said:

Hope this helps!

Thanks so much!