Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship

Presidential Postdoc Fellowship Header

The MSU presidential postdoctoral fellows are catalyzing new research projects across a diverse set of labs, building bridges within and across EEB, which is a fundamental goal of the fellowship program. - Elise Zipkin, EEB director.

The MSU EEB Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship is a two-year position that includes a generous salary and research stipend. Fellows are fully participating members of EEB with cutting-edge research programs and innovative community engagement initiatives, mentored by two or more EEB faculty members.

Applications are now being accepted for the 2026 cohort and should be submitted here by Nov. 10, 2025. Final interviews will take place in Jan. for an expected start date in summer 2026. Information about the position and the application process is at this link. FAQs for sponsoring faculty and applicants can be found here.

2025 Fellows

Nicole Lussier

Nicole Lussier completed her PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee, where her doctoral work focused on the reassembly of species interactions and avian communities in northwest Ecuador. She is continuing with her passion for tropical conservation and restoration at MSU, working with Lars Brudvig in plant biology and Olivia Smith in horticulture to bridge ecological theory with practical restoration strategies to enhance understanding of successional pathways that support tropical forest regeneration and resilience.

Nicole's project brings a symmetry to EEB, as Smith was in the first cohort of presidential postdocs in 2021-2022.

Nicole’s community engagement initiative includes organizing a scientific writing series that provides constructive feedback on proposals, manuscripts, and grant applications to students and postdocs in the EEB community.

Rebecca Nelson

Rebecca Nelson completed her PhD in integrative ecology at the University of California–Davis with research interests in how global change affects mutualistic communities across space and time. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Utah State University Ecology Center.

As a researcher at MSU, Rebecca explores how global changes affect the conservation of plant-insect interactions in agroecosystems by combining theoretical models, long-term field experiments, bioinformatics, and network ecology. She is working with Kellogg Biological Station researchers Nick Haddad in integrative biology, Christine Sprunger in plant, soil and microbial sciences, and Sarah Evans in integrative biology, and microbiology, genetics, and immunology.

Rebecca engages with the community with practical skill-sharing workshops for EEB graduate students that demystify the hidden expectations of graduate school and by designing a seminar course on LGBTQ+ perspectives in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Meet the Fellows

EEB fellows are researchers passionate about building community and contributing to equity and inclusion in science. The fellows catalyze new research projects across a diverse set of labs, building bridges within and across EEB.