The Monroe Lab welcomes UC Davis undergraduates through internships for course credit. This is the first step for getting involved in research in our lab: every new undergraduate spends their first quarter with us as a for-credit intern. It gives you a real taste of laboratory research and gives both of us a chance to see whether the lab is a good fit before committing to more.
We are not currently able to offer paid undergraduate positions. Students who complete an internship and do well may be considered for paid positions afterward, as funding allows.
Students in our lab spend most of their time doing molecular biology for plant genetics. That means a lot of hands-on chemistry: getting DNA out of plant tissue and preparing it for sequencing. Skills you can expect to develop include:
You will work closely with a graduate student or another lab member, attend lab meetings, and keep a proper lab notebook. If you are curious about graduate school, this is also a chance to interact with grad students and see what research life is actually like.
Experience is not the important thing — many of our most successful students arrived with very limited experience in any of these techniques. What matters is mindset and disposition: genuine curiosity about learning new things, excitement about working in a real biology lab, reliability, and an interest in taking good notes and doing careful work.
The internship is a starting point, not a dead end. Students who do well can go on to:
You register for research credit under Grey as the instructor. Students in our lab typically enroll in PLS 199 (Special Study for Advanced Undergraduates, 1-5 units). PLS 192 (Internship) is an alternative handled through the same department form, and lower division students can use the equivalent PLS 99/92. All of these are graded Pass/No Pass and require instructor consent.
Each unit corresponds to 30 hours of lab work over the quarter. The department’s official guide maps weekly hours to units:
| Hours per week | Units |
|---|---|
| 3-5 | 1 |
| 6-8 | 2 |
| 9-11 | 3 |
| 12-14 | 4 |
A typical internship in our lab is 2-3 units. We generally ask for at least 6 hours per week so you can make real progress.
Registration works through the Plant Sciences department’s online Internship Application Program : once we agree you are joining, you submit an application there naming Grey as your faculty advisor. The system emails Grey to approve it electronically, the Advising Office processes it, and you receive a unique CRN by email to register for your units. Applications are due by the 8th day of instruction each quarter and the system will not accept late submissions, which is one more reason to get in touch early.
Over one quarter, the goal is for you to become competent and reliable with the core techniques above, keep a complete lab notebook, and present what you did and learned at a lab meeting at the end of the quarter.
Email Grey (gmonroe@ucdavis.edu ) well before the start of the quarter you want to join — ideally a month or more — so there is time to meet and set up registration. Please include:
We review inquiries each quarter and take a small number of students at a time, so telling us clearly when you want to start and what you can commit to goes a long way.