Aquatic Innovations in Materials Science (AIMS) Lab

Available Positions

Page updated: January 6, 2025

Undergraduate Students

General Information: Throughout the academic year, Prof. Ray often supports undergraduate research assistants (UGRAs). UGRAs work directly with a graduate student or postdoctoral scholar in the lab to assist them with their research projects.

In the AIMs lab, we enjoy working with undergraduate students at any stage in their undergraduate career! However, it is our preference to recruit interested students who can commit to working in the lab over the course of at least 1 academic year (or longer). Our lab is almost entirely experimental. What does this mean? Almost all data generated in our group comes from researchers working in the lab to perform experiments. Remote/out-of-lab work typically involves reading papers, analyzing processed data and writing manuscripts. What this also means is that it takes some time to develop the lab skills required to perform tests, which takes a lot of planning and time for both the mentor and the mentee. Therefore, we prefer that once these skills are learned by the UGRAs, they can stay around for awhile to deeply engage in the research (and perhaps lead an independent research project!).

Additionally, current researchers in the lab that are interested in working with an undergraduate student varies from quarter to quarter. Some projects require an extra pair of hands in the lab to rapidly acquire data, while some quarters are more dedicated to thinking/processing information. Therefore, in part, availability of UGRA positions is driven by the graduate/postdoc researchers’ needs and bandwidth to train new undergraduate students in the lab.  

How does it work? There are 3 mechanisms by which interested undergraduate students can join the AIMS lab:

Volunteer – This is one of the easiest approaches to conduct research with faculty. If there is a faculty member’s research that you’re interested in, then you can approach them about volunteering in their lab on an existing project. The UW Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) requires the completion of a volunteer form that needs to be filed with the department’s administrative team before you could officially start. The duration of the volunteer experience should be discussed with Prof. Ray and the direct lab mentor; however, because volunteers are unpaid, we prefer the timelines to be relatively short (~1 quarter). For more information regarding research restrictions and requirements for volunteers, please visit this site.

Independent Study – UG students can enroll in 1 to 3 credits per quarter of independent study (usually CEE 499 or ChemE 499) to receive course credit for their research experience. If this route sounds appealing, the interested student should reach out to Prof. Ray to discuss the specific research goals of the Independent Study. Conducting research during an academic quarter + your usual course load is challenging, but possible. For the UW CEE department, there is also a form that needs to be completed which will allow the student to enroll in independent study.

Hourly paid – UG students can be compensated per hour they spend doing research (typical rates include $21.57/hr but are likely to change over time with new UW/departmental policies). Of course, this requires that the faculty you’re interested in working with has funding available to financially support an UGRA’s time. Please email Prof. Ray at jessray@uw.edu if there is a position available in our group and if you would like to be compensated for your time to ensure that funding is in place.

Prior to starting lab work, UGRAs will be required to complete several lab safety trainings and complete a walk-through with Prof. Ray. Please contact Prof. Ray at jessray@uw.edu for more information regarding which trainings to take.

Positions available? For the summer 2024 quarter, there are no available positions for undergraduate research. 2 to 3 weeks before the start of a new quarter is a good time to check this page for available UGRA opportunities!

Graduate Students (Thesis-track Masters and Ph.D.)

General Information: Thesis-track students (typically 1.5 – 2 years) and Ph.D. (typically 4 – 5.5 years) research experiences are a great opportunity to connect deeply with a research topic/potential career opportunity that you’re passionate about! Graduate students work with their research advisors to answer large, open-ended and often very complex questions.

Degree requirements: For our department, Thesis-track Masters students are required to complete a total of 33 course credits and 9 Master’s Thesis research credits (max 12 credits with faculty approval) to complete their degree. Once the course requirement is met and the student and research advisor believe the research progress has neared completion, Thesis-track Masters students are required to defend their Masters research. During the defense, the research advisor and one other Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) faculty serve as the student’s Thesis committee. A written thesis document is prepared by the Masters student describing the motivation of their research, main findings and conclusions. This thesis is then sent to the committee members for review. Additionally, a ~30-min oral presentation is given by the student to the committee members. After a Q&A session, the committee decides whether or not the student passes and will receive their degree.

Please use this link to learn more about Ph.D. milestones and the degree requirements. In short, Ph.D. students are also required to complete coursework with a minimum of 54 coursework credits (400 level or above). Three exams are required before a Ph.D. student can graduate: (1) Qualifying Exam, (2) General Exam and (3) Final Exam. (1) Sometime between the end of the Ph.D. student’s first 1.5 academic years in the department, the research advisor and student will schedule the Qualifying Exam. A committee of 3 CEE faculty (the research advisor + 2 others) is formed to administer the exam. The purpose of the exam is for the student to demonstrate their capacity to complete doctoral research within their area of research. Please see this link for more details: https://www.ce.washington.edu/current/Ph.D./milestones/qualifying (2) The General Exam is essentially a mid-way checkpoint for the Ph.D. student. The purpose of the exam is for the student to describe the motivation of their doctoral research, progress made to-date and what tests and research objectives remain to be completed. A written report is generated by the student to send to a committee of 4 to 5 faculty for review outlining the scope of their doctoral research, and a ~30-40 min oral presentation is given as well. The faculty committee will provide the student with feedback about their progress. If the student passes, then the (3) Final Exam is the last step that remains. As the name suggest, the Final Exam is a repeat of the General Exam (written report + presentation to the committee members) done at the end of the student’s Ph.D. program.

Financial Support: Graduate students interested in doing long-term research are paid to do so! Thesis-track Masters students can be Ph.D. students are typically funded via a combination of fellowships (from the department, university or externally; check text below for more details), through a grant awarded to the research advisor (e.g., National Science Foundation grant), and teaching assistantships (TAs; funds come from the department). In the UW CEE, graduate students are paid throughout the academic year and for the duration of their degree. For example, if a graduate student is doing Masters thesis research with an advisor and one quarter they spend 20% of their time doing research and 80% of their time taking classes to meet their course requirements, they will still receive funding and will not have to pay for tuition.

Please ask your research advisor and graduate student advisors if you have any specific questions about funding or degree requirements. The details provided here are just a general overview of what to expect.

Applications open? Applications for Fall 2024 are closed. For those interested in joining the group for the Fall 2025 should prepare to submit an application on or before the December 15th deadline. Please see (“Where do I apply?” text below).

Funded position descriptions: Currently, there are no funded Thesis-track Masters or Ph.D. positions available for a Fall 2025 start date in the AIMs lab. Please check back at a later time for updates if funding is acquired (please see below for more information about funding availability). If positions become available, they will be posted here. There is no need to continue emailing Prof. Ray to ask if there are positions available.

When is a good time to check for available positions? For my group, and generally for a lot of Ph.D. programs, it’s best to start checking around September/October. Most Ph.D. application deadlines are in December for positions available in the following Fall term.

Where do I apply? You can submit your application to the UW Graduate School’s online application portal. The link can be found here. There are three mechanisms for admissions to the University of Washington to join the AIMS lab.

Guidance for graduate student recruitment and admissions within Environmental Engineering at UW: Here, I will attempt to relay some important information regarding how Thesis-track Masters and/or Ph.D. admissions and funding decisions are made. Applicants to the UW Environmental Engineering graduate program will receive one of three outcomes:

  1. Application denied;
  2. Admitted to the Professional Masters Program (PMP) to join the program as a course-based Masters student with a possibility of transitioning into a Thesis-track Masters or Ph.D. program at a later date. If you are interested in graduate research with one of our Environmental Engineering faculty, and that faculty does not have funding to support students at the time of your admission into our program, you can either go forward with the course-based Masters and wait until that faculty acquires funding (a bit of a gamble) or offer to work with the faculty to identify and apply for funding that would go to support your pay as a research-based graduate student. Note that for outcome (2), you need to indicate in your application that you would be interested in being admitted to the PMP.
  3. Admitted to the Ph.D. program with a funding offer.

Around mid to late February, our department will have a prospective graduate student Visit Day where a select number of applicants are invited on campus to meet with each other, with faculty and with academic advisors. If you are not selected for Visit Day, it is not an indication that we are not interested in admitting you, but more an indication that there are not enough funds to invite everyone out. The decisions for accepting or denying applicants is typically finalized by mid-April.

More about outcome 3:

How do I make my application stand out? Often, I receive emails from prospective students throughout the year asking about research opportunities, the email reads as a mini resume and there’s some general mention of interest in water treatment research. While these emails are fine, they’re not compelling. I’m really interested in working with graduate student researchers that are intellectually curious, eager to learn and work, ask lots of questions, and can explain what their research interests are and why joining my group and working with me will provide them with the best learning opportunity for their graduate research goals. It is also helpful if the applicant has strong written and oral communication skills. If your plan is to email prospective research advisors, it is best to send along your curriculum vitae as an attachment and to personalize the email. Pro tip: General copy/paste emails sent to 50+ potential research advisors is a great way to get your email ignored! Faculty can tell the difference between a personally-crafted email and a templated email 😊

In your application, you should indicate which faculty you are interested in working with by naming them in your personal statement. The applicants are reviewed by all Environmental Engineering faculty using a grading rubric. Some of the metrics include:

  • Academic preparedness – Does the applicant have an undergraduate degree that is related to Environmental Engineering and/or their research area of interest? What classes have they taken to prepare them for their degree.
  • Motivation and resilience – Does the applicant demonstrate an upward academic trajectory with clear goals towards their desired degree?
  • Contributions to our department – Does the applicant bring a new perspective to the department and/or possess non-traditional evidence of potential (e.g., service, outreach, diversity-equity-inclusion contributions?)
  • Research experience – It is helpful if an applicant has had prior exposure to conducting research, but it is not critical for admissions.

Funding, funding, funding: If it is not clear yet, funding is a HUGE driver of graduate student research position availability. Faculty that lead research groups apply for funding opportunities year-round to continue supporting current researchers and to secure funding for future researchers. Unfortunately, the decisions about awarded grants does not always align with the typical graduate student recruitment schedule. In fact, the funding decisions for these grants are highly variable and can arrive before or after the Ph.D. admissions letters and decisions are made. So it’s important to check back in with faculty you’re interested in work with to see if they’ve received news about funding. Another very important option for graduate student applicants to consider is applying to external fellowships to provide full or partial financial support during their degree programs. Often, universities and departments offer some amount of fellowship support for undergraduate and graduate student researchers; however, the funds provided are usually not enough to fully support multiple years of research that are required for Thesis-track Masters or Ph.D. research. I highly recommend applying to external fellowships to increase your likelihood of being admitted to the research program of your choice! Essentially, external fellowship eases the financial pressure placed on your potential faculty advisor to financially support you.  There are options for domestic and international fellowships if you search online. Many of the applications for these fellowships are due between the months of October – December and require letters of recommendation, so I recommend starting that search early and planning ahead. Here are some helpful resources for funding!

Domestic Students

International Students

How do I know if this is the right program for me? Undertaking graduate research is not an easy decision to make. It’s a lot of hard work and a multi-year commitment so choose wisely! You will want to make sure that the research advisor you’re so keen to work with is going to be one that is supportive as you work towards your degree goals. I strongly suggest emailing a prospective research advisor to ask for a virtual meeting. You can also ask for the email addresses of their current group members to ask them if they would recommend working with their research advisor. You can also ask to virtually join a research group meeting to see how the research group works together. Other factors to consider are the prestige of the institution/advisor, the facilities available on campus, geographical location and of course other personal factors influencing your decision.

Yay! You got an offer letter: Some Ph.D. programs admit students in “batch” cohorts where the first year of the program is spent taking classes and performing research rotations until the students are assigned to Ph.D. advisors. At the University of Washington, the Ph.D. admissions offer letter comes with the funding offer to work with the advisor that you’d like to work with. The duration of the funding in the offer letter can range from 1 to 5 years, and depends on how much funding the faculty advisor has available and of course if the applicant is able to secure fellowships to offset the cost of their degree. Ph.D. students can receive some additional financial support via TA positions and some College of Engineering/departmental fellowships, but this will not be enough to sustain the length of the Ph.D. Therefore, it is essential that you make contact with the faculty you’re interested in early on to see what financial support may be in place in order for you to complete your degree. A similar mechanism exists for Thesis-track Masters students: If admitted, you will receive a combination admissions + funding letter indicating that you will be supported by Prof. X and that Y years of funding will be provided for your degree.

Every academic department and university have different policies and expectations regarding ALL of the information presented here. As you are looking into different research programs to join for graduate research, make sure that you understand how that particular department’s policies work to support their students!

Postdoctoral Scholars & Research Scientists

Applications open? There’s no formal application cycle for postdocs or for research scientists. If you are interested in joining the group as a postdoc or research scientist, please check the text below for available positions and email Prof. Ray at jessray@uw.edu for more details.

Funded position descriptions: Currently, there are no funded postdoc or research scientist positions available in the AIMs lab. Please check back at a later time for updates if funding is acquired.

External funding sources: Below are some links for postdoc funding.