Urgent question concerning Professor interaction during conference: what I can do if he is a potential advisor for grad school?

[poeticlife]

Hey All! I am attending a conference this Sunday. One of the presenters (not in our univ.) is working on a field of my interest. However unfortunately, I am planning to transfer from genetics and cell biology to biostatistics or bioinformatics in grad school. He is the department head of bioinformatics and a professor of biostatistics. His researches are highly relevant to what I want to work on as grad. Yet I do not see many of overlaps between my past project and his recent ones. My plan is to read his recent publications of my interests and his written chapters for textbooks. He also has a publication which is directly related to his topic in the conference. So I probably will also take it. 

My question is: how could I communicate with him after his lecture? I plan to send him an email prior to his lecture about what questions I have regarding his other researches and ask him face to face right after conference with questions about his lecture. However, I really wanna work on his projects as a phd or master student. Does anyone know if there is any reasonable way for me to interact with him in the following month without any offense? How should I communicate with an info of "I wanna work with you, can you take me into consideration"? This is the first time for me to communicate with an out-of-own-school professor under a not-taking-course-or-doing-research condition. I feel very unsure and anxious. Thanks a lot!

[Lisa44201]

How about, "I enjoyed your presentation. I have a few questions...." and have the last question be, "Are you accepting grad students next year?"

[dat_nerd]

My question is: how could I communicate with him after his lecture? I plan to send him an email prior to his lecture about what questions I have regarding his other researches and ask him face to face right after conference with questions about his lecture. 

Do send him an email prior to his lecture. However, I advise that you approach this less discretely. I recommend that you email him today explaining your situation (that you are transferring between fields and are really interested in pursuing his research area) and asking to meet up after the lecture. If it's a morning lecture, you can ask to meet up for lunch (though he may be already scheduled). When you do meet up, ask questions about his research and discuss where you're interested in going with your graduate work. I don't recommend explicitly asking him to advise you, but if you make a good impression in-person, he'll remember that when looking at your application later.

[TakeruK]

I wouldn't count on being able to just catch him right after the lecture and expect him to have time to have a serious conversation with you. I know you are planning to email him ahead of time, but I would also strongly recommend making your intentions immediately clear in the email so that he knows what to expect in the meeting. If you just randomly write to a professor that you want to talk to him about his research, I feel that the conversation can go so many different ways that he won't know if the meeting would be important / worthwhile to him (as he may be very busy with other commitments that day) and thus might even just ignore you or does not prioritize it.

 

So, I would suggest that you don't try to hide your real intentions. It sounds like the goal of this meeting is for you to introduce yourself to this professor, because you are interested in working with him in grad school. The goal isn't just to talk about his research, and it might be hard to find the time to talk about two things at once, especially if you will only have like 5 minutes with him. Of course, talking about you wanting to work with him would also involve talking about research, but I feel like you might be better off if you initiate the conversation with the "real" topic (grad school) and then your research discussion can be framed around that topic.

 

I would write an email to him ASAP saying who you are and that you are applying to grad schools in X this year and that University Y is one of the places you would like to go to. And that you are interested in his research, especially in topics A, B, and C. You can say that you are attending the Conference, and that you hope he can find some time to meet with you during the conference. Then hopefully he will schedule a time with you or something vague and then you can have a discussion with him about his research goals and your research interests and see how they line up. Maybe he will even suggest other people he knows for you to talk to and/or introduce you to them at the conference. Maybe he will get you in touch with some of his current or former grad students. 

 

At least in my field, I think it's best to get directly to the point in the first conversation / email. Don't beat around the bush!

[poeticlife]

Thanks guys! How about me talking to him directly after the conference? I feel like it's more secure because this is a season for email floods haha.

[TakeruK]

I think it's still worth it to email him. If he sees it and meets with you during the conference, then that's great. If it's an "email flood" in his inbox, and your email isn't read, then no harm done either!