It's a major limitation. Achong points out that hers is a developing country. Support for graduate research is scarce. With the Stanford program, the best and the brightest can afford to pursue graduate studies here regardless of the research budgets of their homelands. To receive their doctoral degrees, Stanford students already must teach two quarters.
Advisers have the flexibility to explore new areas.
Matthew Reidenbach, the Wells Family Stanford Graduate Fellow, is working toward his doctorate in civil and environmental engineering with adviser Jeffrey Koseff, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and senior associate dean in the School of Engineering. He is using his fellowship to investigate a novel area that bridges the disciplines of marine biology and fluid mechanics to study coral reef ecosystems. Turbulence above coral reefs influences how organisms feed, how nutrients are distributed, how larvae disperse and other factors critical to dynamic ecosystems. To conduct this research, Reidenbach spends about five weeks a year at the Red Sea. His research collaborators include civil and environmental engineering Professors Stephen Monismith and Koseff at Stanford and marine biologist Amatzia Genin and a half-dozen other researchers from Hebrew University.