Current Openings

At present, there are some funded/paid undergraduate positions open in the lab. I am also happy to help undergraduate, graduate, or postdoctoral researchers identify and apply for funded opportunities. For undergraduate and graduate students, these opportunities include fellowships at NJIT as well as federal funding through the National Science Foundation. Undergraduates may also undertake independent research for course credit. If you are a potential postdoctoral researcher interested in working together, please get in touch – there are a number of routes for funding collaborative research.

In general, we work to answer questions related to the following topics: (1) the evolution of social insects (2) the methodological limits of extracting data from fossilized organisms including through X-ray imaging (3) morphological evolution, functional morphology, and the reconstruction of ancient behaviors (4) phylogenetics and the utility of fossils in systematic biology (5) applying comparative genomic approaches to better understand convergent trends in evolution. Although these are our core areas of research, motivated students who are interested in answering different but complimentary questions are encouraged to apply.

If you would like to know more about joining the lab, please email barden [at] njit.edu with your research interests and previous experience. If you're a student with no previous research experience, that's OK! Students and postdocs who are interested in social insects, paleoentomology, X-ray imaging, systematics, or comparative genomics are especially encouraged to get in touch. Students may have a particular project in mind or work to develop an independent project alongside the PI.