Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,
I am currently considering doing a science fair dealing with the brain in terms of visualization and dreaming. As I do not have the materials to research the frontal lobe in the brain, I will need to contact a professor. I live in close proximity to UC Berkley and UCSF, but I feel hesitant to contact a professor for fear of being ignored because of my lack of credibility as having no prior relation with them. Do you guys have any suggestions in going about attaining this opportunity to work alongside a professor for my science fair?
Thanks.

Hi,

I have moved your topic to the Life Sciences section of the board because your project seems more applicable to life sciences.

Science Buddies has a great guide on finding a mentor that I suggest you read if you haven't already: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tors.shtml .

A few additional quick suggestions:
First, don't worry too much. Biology professors are, by and large, really nice people--and if they aren't nice, you don't want to work with them anyway. The worst thing they may do is just ignore your e-mail because they're too busy to respond to it.

Second, realize that they get lots of e-mails from students like you who want to do projects with them; you will not be the only person who has contacted them out of the blue about working with them (as a grad student, as an intern, for an undergraduate research program, etc.).

In order to increase your chances of a reply, I suggest:
Keep the initial message short.
Express your enthusiasm for the project you want to do and the research they are doing.
Know the research they are doing! Read several of their recent papers before you contact them, and try to understand them (you may need our help, especially with neurobiology papers).

Good luck--and don't be afraid, they won't bite!

Dear zander,

I was in a similar situation as you two years ago. I wanted to do biology research at a university with a professor and was scared like you are. What I did was email them explaining my desire to do research. I read one of their papers and told them in my email what I found really interesting about it. I know, for me, when I first started reading their paper I was really intimidated by it because I didn't know a lot about what they are saying, but I tried to understand what I could and transmited my understanding to the professor. Anyway, in your email you should be very nice and explain your situation. Make sure the professor you are emailing does the type of research that you are interested in doing. So the result of my emailing: I did research with the same professor for 2 years and had a great experience. Don't be discouraged if you don't get a response or get rejected by a lot of professors. Just keep trying. I had to email about 10 people before I was accepted.

good luck with your search and let me know if you have any more questions,
scienceexpert123