Prospective Students and Postdocs
Joining Lira Lab as a Postdoc
Please send me an email.Joining Lira Lab as a Ph.D. Student
Please apply through the university's application portal: https://gradadm.usc.edu/.Until December 2024, I replied all emails about joining my lab as a Ph.D. student (it is possible that I missed a few). However, it was not sustainable -- I was receiving 50-100 such emails per month for half of the year. And more importantly, I realized most of the students were sending me copy-paste emails and I was replying them with another copy-paste email. What is the point?
Here, I will try to answer the questions that used to justify sending me an email. If your question is not answered here, feel free to send me an email.
- Will you admit new Ph.D. students this year? For Fall 2025, yes I am planning to recruit 1-2 new Ph.D. students. For Fall 2026, please check back later. I will update this information probably around summer. There is no separate application cycle for starting in the Spring or Summer semesters.
- Can I schedule a meeting with you so that we will see if there is a fit? As much as I would love to talk to every person interested in my research, there is simply not enough time. To make it more convincing, if I had a 30-minute meeting with every applicant, I would have to give up every other work-related responsibility for almost a month. Please check the research page and the publications of my lab. They should give you an idea about whether I am a good fit for you as an advisor or not. And I cannot comment on whether or not you are good fit for me as a Ph.D. student before seeing the entire application pool because the process is inherently competitive.
- Which department should I apply? Either Computer Science (CS) of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). I have an appointment in both departments, so it does not matter for joining my lab. You should decide based on which other professors you would be interested in working with, as some of them may have appointments only in one of the departments (see the list of robotics faculty here). You may be under the impression that one department may be more competitive than the other, etc. I evaluate all applications in the same way, without even paying attention to the department. So you should not try to strategize in this way. I do not (and cannot) recruit Ph.D. students from any other departments.
- I do not want to submit an application if I have no chance, can you pre-evaluate my application? Again, there is not enough time. I suggest checking the profiles of my current Ph.D. students. Projecting their profiles a few years back when they were applying, do you think you'd have a similar/better application? If yes, please go ahead and apply!
- Can you grant me a fee waiver? First of all, I am totally with you on this. There are many problems with the Ph.D. application fees (for one, they should be based on the applicant's country similar to how many subscription services have different prices in different countries). But unfortunately, I do not have the power to grant fee waivers. Please see the information on this page to see if you are eligible for a waiver.
- I already submitted my application, can I send you a reminder to make sure you don't miss it? I review every single application that listed me as a potential advisor. Please do not send reminders. If I do not send you an interview request in the first 2-3 weeks of January, it probably means either (1) your recommendation letters are not complete yet, or (2) I am not considering to make an offer to you. However, it is still possible that another professor may reach out to you for their labs.
Joining Lira Lab as an Undergraduate/Master's Student
If you are currently enrolled in USC as a student, please send me an email with your CV and transcript. In the email, make sure to write "you can share my CV with your Ph.D. students." In most cases, I will do an evaluation myself and then I may forward your CV to my Ph.D. students to see if there is any project that is a good fit for you to join. If you have your own project idea and do not want to join an existing project, that's also fine -- please send me a summary of the idea in addition to your CV and transcript.If you are not a USC student, I assume your case falls under one of the cases below. If not, feel free to send me an email.
- Paid Internships: For now, we only recruit interns through official USC programs, please check: NSF REU, SURE, JumpStart, IUSSTF-Viterbi, USC-Tsinghua. I know some students are not eligible for any of these programs, but unfortunately I am not planning to recruit paid interns outside these programs for Summer 2025.
- Self-Funded Internships: The cost of living in California is high and I expect internships to be at least 10 weeks, but if you are willing to do a self-funded internship, feel free to send me an email. Please note that the bar will not be lower than the other applicants of the same level regardless of the funding situation. If I do not respond, you can assume it is a negative response.
- Remote Work: This is a little difficult in robotics, so I prefer working with students who can come to the lab in-person. I can make exceptions for extraordinary students, so feel free to send me an email. If I do not respond, you can assume it is a negative response.