Thank you for your interest in my imaging research at the University of Michigan. I have been in the EECS Department since 1995, and over these many years I have been enjoying the privilege of working with many creative and bright graduate students from all around the world. You can see the dissertations of all of these students on my web page, as well as their career paths.

Every year I get numerous emails with the question "will there be any openings in my lab new fall?" My web page shows that I have graduated at least one PhD student every year since 2003, often 2 or 3 students per year. So it is logical to think that I must recruit one or more new PhD students every year! Naturally I prefer to work with students who think logically.

I do not read resumes sent to me in Microsoft formats. Here are many reasons why not.
I prefer that you send your resume in plain text in email body, not an attachment.
I automatically delete emails with resumes sent in Word format because I know such students have not read this page so they must be using a mass email system rather than really trying to find an adviser whose interests match theirs!

If you send me a plain text resume in your email, then I will read it. And I will keep you in mind for financial aid decisions that are made in the Spring. But nevertheless, rarely do I reply to such emails because I focus my time on my current students.
In particular, I do not reply to the question "what are my chances of admission." Your chances will be improved by applying...

To get a feeling about what are the current projects in my group, look at submitted papers and recently presented conference papers. In particular, reading the "future work" components of the discussion section of any recent paper or thesis on my web page is a reasonable way to see possible future directions.

Please understand that after you are in a graduate program, you will be glad if your adviser spends his or her time working with you instead of responding to numerous emails from prospective students. I hope you understand.

If you are embarking on PhD research, this short article should be required reading.