Prospective Students
Opportunities in Our Lab
Prospective Graduate Students
Dr. Santos advises students through the Department of Biological Science’s graduate program. Our department offers an MS and a PhD program in Biology. The deadline to apply for Fall is December 1. I am quite selective about the people joining our lab, but am interested in taking students who are passionate about ecology, have a nagging curiosity about nature, are hardworking and are serious about scientific inquiry and graduate school. Graduate school is not necessarily for everyone…. In order to succeed in graduate school you really need to want it!
The Santos Seascape Ecology Lab and Rehage FIU Fisheries Lab is seeking two graduate students to start Fall 2026!
We are seeking two motivated students with a passion for coastal recreational fisheries, and their movement and foraging ecology. Research will focus on the movement of recreational fisheries in coastal Everglades habitats, how these recreational fisheries track resources and hydroclimatic heterogeneity across riverscapes and seascapes, and the implications of these responses for fisheries sustainability, Everglades restoration and climate change. Research will combine acoustic telemetry, stable isotopes, prey studies and habitat mapping on Common Snook, coastal Largemouth Bass and juvenile Tarpon. Graduate work will also be conducted in collaboration with the Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research Program (FCE LTER; http://fcelter.fiu.edu/). Competitive support will be a combination of research & teaching assistantships.
Preferred qualifications: The ideal candidate has a strong interest and experience in fish ecology, recreational fisheries and spatial/movement/trophic ecology, excellent writing and quantitative skills, and previous lab and field fish/fisheries experience. A Master’s degree, experience coding in R, and prior publications are a plus.
If you are interested in working in our laboratories as a graduate student, please review our lab's website and the Coastal Fisheries website and familiarize yourself with our current projects and recent publications. You should also review the application guidelines from the biology and Earth and Environment graduate programs first, and contact us before applying.
To apply: Please email Dr. Jenn Rehage at rehagej@fiu.edu and Dr. Rolando Santos at rsantosc@fiu.edu. In your email, please include:
1) a cover letter (describing research interests, experience, and fit to our labs),
2) your CV,
3) other supporting documents as needed (unofficial transcripts, publications/presentations, popular writing samples, etc.).
Please combine these materials into a single PDF and use ‘PhD applicant 2026 + your name’ as the subject line in your email. We advise students through the Biology and Earth & Environment Departments (Deadlines for application are December 1, 2025 for Biology and February 1, 2026 for Earth & Env. (please see: https://case.fiu.edu/earth-environment/phd-in-earth-systems-science/index.html and https://case.fiu.edu/biology/students/graduate-programs/phd-in-biology/admissions/index.html for additional details).
Prospective Undergraduate interns and technicians
If you would like to join our lab as an intern or technician, check out our current research, read some of our publications, and do not hesitate to the respective lab graduate student for the project you are most interested in working with! We are always seeking enthuastiac undergraduates to assist us in our data collection and processing. If you are looking to get experience in marine biology, we would love to have you. Please attach your resume or CV when you reach out to a lab member. There are opportunities for undergraduate interns to gain fieldwork experience in our lab after enough time working with us.
About our university:
FIU is a R1 public research university (Doctoral universities – highest research activity) and member of the State University System of Florida located in Miami, with a highly diverse, vibrant, and growing student body. Our multiple campuses serve over 58,000 students, making FIU the seventh largest U.S. university, and largest majority-minority serving institution in the US. In addition, FIU also has the most diverse group of faculty of all universities in the US. The Department of Biology is within the FIU Institute of Environment, which is an FIU preeminent program whose mission is to, in collaboration with local and international partners, provide data-driven solutions to society’s greatest and most urgent challenges.
