Prospective students visit the Department and meet with several members of staff to discuss the research projects that interest them, and with other members of staff as well, in order to give them the widest view of the activities of the Department as possible. Studentships are offered according to rank ordering of the academic merits of candidates who visit. Thereafter, a project is chosen by agreement between postgraduate and the Advisor of choice. As well as their primary advisor each student also chooses another member of staff, usually with related interests, to act as a mentor. Our system of mentoring means that students not only have their own research environment to work in but easily become familiar with what is going on within other groups in the department.
Most groups are large and employ a range of techniques.
Because of this students are encouraged to learn how others approach and solve problems and to use a range of techniques in their own studies. Finance Funding comes from various sources. Some students are registered for a PhD whilst holding a Research Assistantship, and these are often advertised in journals such as Nature or New Scientist, by the member of staff who has a specific project on which the assistant will work. Dr Helen Kennedy - Calcium hotspots of mammalian cochlear hair cells. Dr Julian Paton - 1.