Come work for the Clancy Lab - now accepting grad students

The 2016-2017 Clancy Lab. Top row: Rachel Mitchell (U), Katie Lee (G), Mary Rogers (G), Summer Sanford (G). Bottom row: Kate Clancy, Michelle Rodrigues (P), Zarin Sultana (U), Sara Gay (U). Not pictured: Kristina Allen (U)

The Clancy Lab (my half of the Laboratory for Evolutionary Endocrinology) is looking to accept PhD students for fall 2017. Here are some of our current projects:

• PI: Clancy, NSF #1314170: “Ecological determinants of luteal reproductive function.” The goal of this project is to explore the proximate determinants of women’s fecundity and fertility in the luteal phase.
• PI: Amos, co-PIs: Cross, Clancy, Imoukhuede, Mendenhall, NSF #1648454: “The double bind of race and gender: a look into the experiences of women of color in engineering.” The goal of this project is to analyze and understand the problem of poorly sustained participation in engineering among women of color.
• PI: Clancy, co-PIs: Hekman, Urban, Simons, Hammack, Focal Point: “Training the 21st century scientist.” The goal of this project is to identify the factors most important to graduate training and professionalization for scientists, and to produce workshops and a graduate course that develop those skills and competencies. A major focus of this project is diversity and inclusion.

Additional projects, pending funding:

• Co-PIs: Clancy, Lara-Cinisomo, NIH R21 PA-16-161: “Trauma, inflammation, pain, and quality of life outcomes among enodmetriosis patients.” The goal of this project is to clarify correlations between past traumatic events with reproductive hormones and inflammatory biomarkers, as well as pain occurrence, severity, and duration through the menstrual cycle, in order to make clear associations between these factors believed to produce variation in quality of life outcomes among women with endometriosis.
• PI: Clancy, HHMI Science Professors: “The Human Side of Science.” The goal of this project is to develop a weeklong camp, The Human Side of Science Program, that develops undergraduate STEM students’ personal resources, their competence in scientific culture, and time and space to build a support network they can call upon in times of stress or difficulty. We will assess student experiences of microaggressions and other setbacks, their resilience around these experiences, and their health effects in the weeks before and after camp.

My affiliations:

• Anthropology
• Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation (Animal Biology)
• Beckman Institute of Advanced Science & Technology
• Women and Gender in Global Perspectives

The Clancy lab has two major priorities: 1) develop an inclusive, humane working environment to promote advancement of a more diverse population of scientists, and 2) promote science through individual and group outreach efforts.  And as you can see, our laboratory’s research is intentionally diverse, with projects that cover traditional biological anthropology as well as science and technology studies. More recent efforts in our lab have integrated these two halves of our work, to understand how lived experiences within the science climate influence social, mental, and reproductive health. This means we are hoping to recruit students interested in any of the following topics:

• Women’s reproductive ecology
• Biocultural anthropology, particularly related to women’s health or racial health disparities
• GxE interactions, particularly as they relate to life history trait timing
• Broadening participation in research – interests in research questions on underserved populations, including but not limited to transgender/genderqueer/genderfluid, differently abled, migrant identities.

Finally, if all of that didn’t excite you enough, here are a few great things to know about the University of Illinois that, if you happen to be a senior in college, you may not realize are very important:

• Our graduate school acceptance generally carries five and a half years of guaranteed support in the form of both TA and RAships.
• The graduate students at Illinois have a strong union that will have your back throughout your time here.

If these research areas and climate sounds good to you, we hope you’ll apply to the University of Illinois Department of Anthropology PhD Program! The deadline is December 1, 2016, and the application is here.

Please email me to set up a time to talk. Other folks in the lab may also be able to answer some of your questions about the university, living here, and the resources of the graduate program.