Finding a Research Supervisor

If you are an undergraduate, graduate or other student looking for a research supervisor, mentor; or a professor whose class you might want to take, or you are considring someone who might serve on your thesis or dissertation committee, there are several steps you can take.

• Give thought to the words you use in your search. If you do not immediately find what you need,try different key words. For example, searching for experts on Childhood Psychology will lead to a good ordering of experts versus a search using the broader search word Psychology -- because of the vastness of the field. And a search using the term or words Child Psychology can reveal a different set of experts from the comparable term Childhood Psychology. Another example is a search for vaping, where you must use the term e-cigarettes or electronic cigarettes instead, or broaden your search to the larger fields of nicotine or nicotine addiction, etc. Misspellings can lead to 0 hits. You can further narrow your search by adding a specific professional term, acronym, initialism, etc., such as ADHD, or by using the "Limit display by" box that generally will appear to the upper right of your screen after you perform a search.


• When searching SCHOLARS@FIU. EDU, faculty photos and professional directory information will generally be returned first. However, beneath the list of people with expertise, you sometimes will see, when scrolling down, lists of citations for research not yet linked to a person. We call these records "orphan" records. In the near future, we will be establishing URI links between these records and our faculty (e.g. reuniting the "orphan" with the faculty member who wrote the article).


• When searching for a person using their name, start with either their last name only, or their full first and last name: e.g. enter either Pelham or William Pelham -- and not an abbreviated name such as "Bill Pelham."


• If you are unsure of the correct spelling, put ~ at the end of your search term -- e.g., stolsenburg~ finds Stolzenberg, Lisa (as well her articles on domestic crime and influencing factors).


• We are in the process of adding courses taught, and where possible the syllabus for courses taught into SCHOLARS@FIU. In the future, you will be able to search using course numbers and related key words.


• We also are going to be adding thesis and dissertation committee work performed by faculty in support of their graduate students, in the future, which will help you determine compatible faculty.


• The directory information listed for people in SCHOLARS@FIU will, in the future, contain links directly to the web pages of the person held at their respective colleges, schools or departments. In the meantime, if the web page link does not work, a quick Google search can lead to the department web page.


• Generally speaking, keep it simple when you search! Use short, single terms unless your searches are returning too many results.


• Use quotes to search for an entire phrase -- e.g., "substance use prevention".


• Except for boolean operators, searches are not case-sensitive, so "Environment" and "environment" are equivalent