The newly established Dunk Biology Education Research Lab at Howard University is recruiting PhD students for the upcoming 2025–2026 academic year! We are looking for scholars interested in exploring the intersection between scientific knowledge and societal understandings of that knowledge, especially as it relates to the ways in which biological sex and societal conceptions of gender are misunderstood by biologists, biology students, and the general public. Other topics of interest will be considered, and I encourage you to reach out so we can discuss potential projects.
Howard University is a private research university located in the heart of Washington, D.C. The Graduate School at Howard has been ranked 30th by US News and World Report among the nation’s most innovative universities, and stands out as one of the premiere HBCUs for graduate research, with recent news indicating Howard will become the only HBCU to be classified as an R1 research university later this spring. At Howard, our motto Veritas et Utilitas (Truth and Service) challenges us to apply our knowledge to serve the communities that need it most.
Washington, D.C. is the southern end of the United States’ Northeast Megaregion, and is connected to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston by high-speed rail. DC and surrounding regions are highly interconnected by public transit, including access to 3 international airports. Howard University has a named stop on the Green Line (subway) and is also served by a number of major bus lines, allowing for a large variety of possible home neighborhoods across the urban/suburban spectrum.
Howard Biology graduate students receive full tuition remission as well as a 10-month stipend. This is guaranteed with teaching assistantships, but research assistantships and scholarship opportunitites may be available as well. Assistantships will also be supplemented with summer research funding from the lab currently and continuing as research funds allow, with that amount a top priority in all future funding.
If you are interested, please reach out to Ryan Dunk at ryan.dunk@howard.edu before applying so we can discuss mutual interests and potential projects!