PhD at OIST on Okinawa

OIST — Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology — is looking for PhD candidates for next year.

Briefly, OIST is a new, graduate-level research institute on Okinawa, Japan. The labs range from neuroscience to math to physics to chemistry, but the work is very interdisciplinary. Up until now they have been "just" a research facility as they've been building up the organization, but from this year they are accredited as a graduate school.

They aim for a very international research and graduate student body, and all teaching and interaction is in English. About half of the staff is non-Japanese and I believe the aim is to have the same kind of proportion among students as well.

I was a tutor at the OCNC summer course on computational neuroscience last year. The facilities are very good, and there's a wide variety of research going on. The summer school itself is very high quality.

The one possible drawback with OIST is that the location is decidedly rural. Even grocery shopping is a chore without a car. On the other hand, it gives you plenty of uninterrupted time, and the location is excellent if you happen to be into diving or snorkelling.

If I were a budding graduate student, I'd grab this chance without second thoughts.

Patch clamp microscope at OIST. I was going to add a scenic picture here, but in all honesty, you're more likely to stare at something like this all day long than at any tropical island view.