• Current Poly students: If you are a BS or MS student currently enrolled at Poly, and looking for a MS Thesis or Senior Project topic or simply interested in getting some research experience, feel free to contact me for an appointment. I have a number of research topics available, mostly in the areas of web search, data compression, and distributed systems, and am always looking for strong and highly motivated students to work on them. Note however that most likely this would be an unpaid research experience, as I am usually unable to provide any research assistantship position, at least in the beginning. Also, be advised that I expect a significant time commitment on your side, plus a strong academic background and motivation. If you are willing to invest the effort, participation in research activities can be a very valuable preparation for the job market or graduate school.

• Prospective grad students: If you are not a student at Poly, but currently applying or planning to apply to our PhD program, please only contact me if you are interested specifically in my research area and plan to work in this area during your PhD studies. Since I already have a fair number of PhD students, I am unlikely to accept you as my student unless you have significant background in the area and/or an extremely strong academic background. For general application questions, please read the guidelines for PhD admissions on our department web site, or contact the Director of Graduate Studies at dgs@cis.poly.edu. If you are a prospective MS student, then it is very unlikely that I would be able to offer you financial support, so there is no use in contacting me before you have been admitted.

• Incoming/admitted grad students: If you are an MS or PhD student who has already been admitted to our graduate program but without full financial support, please do not contact me or other faculty members to inquire about research assistantships before arriving on campus. If you were admitted with limited or no support, it means that we were unable to offer more support. Feel free to talk to me about possible research after you arrive on campus, but be aware that most likely this would be an unpaid research experience at least for the first semester or so.

• Internships and visits: If you are a student from another school looking for a paid summer internship, please do not contact me directly. I sometimes do have summer visitors, but this is usually arranged through direct recommendations from colleagues. The same also holds if you are interested in visiting to perform research say for an MS thesis (or Diplomarbeit) or internship requirement at your school: if you do not need financial support from me and there is a close match in research interests, then it might be possible to arrange something, but please ask a faculty member to recommend you to me.