Dear Potential Graduate Student!

Welcome!  I’ve put up this page on my website so that I can share important information with you about applying to work with me as your graduate mentor and supervisor.  As you can gather from my publications, I work on postcranial functional morphology of ape and human fossils.  I also work on the evolutionary history of this group (the hominoids) and have field research in Kenya, in Plio-Pleistocene areas of East Turkana and a late Miocene area in the south of the country. 

​I am eager to hear from prospective students who are interested research questions related to the evolutionary anatomy of hominoids.  What research questions keep you up at night?

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I am affiliated with two graduate programs: RGGS and CUNY.
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Graduate Programs

(1) RGGS Comparative Biology PhD
The Richard Gilder Graduate School (RGGS) at the American Museum of Natural History is the main program that I am affiliated with.  This is a fast-paced 4-year doctoral program that draws students across the biological sciences.  Your graduate cohort will include students working on beetles, microbes, dinosaurs, etc.  Having a strong research plan is important for this accelerated program (that is, you will need to walk in the door with fairly well-developed research questions).  Having past independent research experience such as a Masters degree and past coursework in Biological Sciences is very advantageous for the Comp Bio PhD.   

• Funding: The RGGS Comp Bio program provides a stipend for student research in addition to a generous fellowship stipend. 
• Application deadline: usually December 15th annually
• Program duration: 4 years
• More information: https://www.amnh.org/research/richard-gilder-graduate-school/school-overview/faq

 
(2) CUNY Graduate Center Anthropology PhD
I am also available to co-supervise students through CUNY’s Anthropology PhD program.  What this means is that you would also need to identify another CUNY core faculty member that has interests aligning with your own.  The CUNY PhD program is a more traditional Biological Anthropology program. Because of the partner-program relationship between the RGGS and CUNY, the opportunities that are available to my RGGS students are also available to my CUNY students. In other words, my CUNY students also enjoy privileged access to AMNH Science collections and facilities, and can conduct their daily work in the Museum.  The most obvious difference between CUNY and RGGS relates to program length.  For example, CUNY may be a better fit than the RGGS if you would like fieldwork to be a part of your dissertation research.

• Funding: The Anthropology PhD Program is allocated a certain number of awards each year, to be granted competitively on the basis of both merit and need. Some carry partial tuition waivers; others do not. Most funding packages have service obligations, mainly as undergraduate instructors at the CUNY campuses. I strongly encourage all of my applicants to apply for the Partner Program Fellowship, which provides a 5 year fellowship that significantly reduces your teaching obligations if awarded (see below).
• Application deadline: December 15th
• Program duration: 5 years
• More information: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Anthropology/About
• Student handbook here: https://www.gc.cuny.edu/CUNY_GC/media/CUNY-Graduate-Center/Handbook-May-2021_1.pdf

 
You may have seen me listed as faculty in the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP). NYCEP is not a degree-granting program (you cannot “apply” to NYCEP).  NYCEP is a training consortium between CUNY, NYU, RGGS, Columbia, and a few other NY-area institutions.  NYCEP allows graduate students in these institutions to benefit from the resources and faculty in the other programs.  For example, all of my students enrolled in RGGS and CUNY programs will be taking an intensive cadaver-based Medical Human Gross Anatomy course offered at a NYCEP school (most likely Mt. Sinai School of Medicine). 
 

Other Considerations

Important questions to ask yourself:

• Why do I want to go to graduate school?
• Which of Dr. Hammond’s papers do I find interesting and why?
• How do my research interests dovetail with research happening in the AMNH Biological Anthropology Lab? 
• Do I feel prepared to undertake an accelerated Comparative Biology PhD at the Museum, or would an Anthropology PhD program at CUNY suit me better?

 
Do you want to work with me?

• You should apply to both programs!
• You should also indicate on your RGGS application that you would like to be considered for the RGGS-CUNY Partner Program Fellowship.  This fellowship (if awarded) provides co-funding for incoming CUNY PhD students mentored by AMNH curators. You must apply to both programs to be considered for this fellowship.  More information is here.
• Please email me (ahammond@amnh.org) if you plan on applying to work with me as a graduate mentor.  I cannot advocate for your application if we have never corresponded/chatted.  You should do this at least 1-2 months before the application deadline so that we can discuss your interests.  If you are applying to CUNY, this may also require some coordination with other potential CUNY co-mentors.