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Joining the Pop Lab at Stanford

how to join our lab and some FAQs by incoming grad students
We are always looking for bright, energetic, new group members, who enjoy the sorts of things that we do, but can also bring new skills and new ideas to our group.
  • Postdoc applicants, send only your CV (in PDF) in a short email to Prof. Pop. See this Twitter thread or LinkedIn post to help you with this email and your CV.
  • Prospective PhD students, please carefully read the FAQ below before applying to Stanford.
  • Undergrads, if you are at Stanford, contact Prof. Pop and apply through SUPER or an REU program. If you're in the US but not at Stanford, apply through SURF, SRC, NSF, etc. If you're not in the US, find a program between your university and Stanford. We cannot supervise internships or projects for students not affiliated with Stanford.


Frequently Asked Questions by prospective PhD students:

  • Q: Are you taking on new PhD students next September?
  • A: Yes. We tend to welcome about 2-4 new grad students every year.
  • Q: What projects do you have available for new PhD students?
  • A: You can make a good guess about the latest projects in our group by looking at the latest 40 or so published papers. Beyond that, it's harder to tell too specifically, if you are asking this one year in advance. We will tailor and narrow down your specific project(s) in the summer preceding your first quarter at Stanford.
  • Q: Will you admit me to your group?
  • A: Stanford grad school works by admission to a department, not to a group. Thus, we can discuss choice of projects after you get into the Stanford PhD program. Keep in mind that some (not all) first-year PhD students do a rotation to determine which group to eventually join. Some first-year PhD students join a group directly. However, this decision (by the student and advisor) is usually made after admission.
  • Q: Will you fund me?
  • A: All students admitted to the Stanford EE PhD program receive funding. Some receive 3-year SGF fellowships, and others get external fellowships, e.g. from NSF, NDSEG, DOE, GFSD, Hertz, NASA, GEM, or NSERC. (If you are eligible for these, you should apply.) Grad students already at Stanford can apply for one of several VPGE Fellowships. In addition, Stanford/EE effectively guarantees funding during your PhD in some form or another (e.g. TA, RA). But do your best to get a fellowship, because it helps join various groups and gives you greater flexibility.
  • Q: Can I join your group from a (BS, MS, PhD) department other than EE?
  • A: Yes! Our group has welcomed students from Computer Engineering, Materials Science, Mechanical Engineering, Physics (or Applied Physics) in the past. You can also join us from Aero Astro, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, or really any Stanford department where a good amount of overlap exists with what we do. Stanford is famous for having very low (effectively zero) boundaries for inter-departmental research.
  • Q: How can I draw your attention to my application?
  • A: If you apply to EE, select "Eric Pop" among the 3 faculty of interest. This will "flag" your application for me in our system. If you apply to MSE or another non-EE program, list me in your SoP, but keep in mind I usually do not see applications to departments outside EE. Let me know what department you're applying to, if you email me.
  • Q: May I email you?
  • Yes, and I especially encourage emails from women and underrepresented groups in engineering. In your email: 1) start the subject line with "prospective PhD", 2) state at the top that you read this FAQ and briefly write what you want to work on, and 3) read 1-3 of our papers and explain how you would improve or continue that study. Keep your message short (< 300 words total). Email me from your formal address, not a generic one like Gmail, and attach your CV in PDF, nothing else. If you worked with one of our collaborators, mention them in your message.
  • Q: Will my email be answered?
  • A: I will do my best, but please don't worry if you don't hear back. I get many inquiries about joining our group, especially during peak time (Aug-Dec). If it appears that you have not read this page and/or that you work in a different area, your email may go unanswered. If you are a very good fit to our group (in experiments, theory, or bringing some new expertise) then we should stay in touch. However, the real discussion (e.g. about research topics) will start after we begin evaluating applications and/or after you are admitted.
  • Q: Can we talk (by phone, Zoom, etc.) before admission?
  • A: No, this isn't really practical, because we receive hundreds of applications. We will talk if your application is selected for a Zoom interview in late January or early February.
  • Q: May I email your current group members?
  • A: Yes, but better to do this after you've been admitted, unless you have a connection to them (e.g. same alma mater). There is plenty of information about Stanford EE, campus, and life online.
  • Q: How do I increase my chances of admission (in general)?
  • A: Have high GPA, good writing/presentation skills, and research experience. Have 3 strong reference letters from people who know your work well. (At least 2 should be from faculty who can rank you against previous people they wrote letters for.) If possible, be a co-author on some publications or conference abstracts -- list these and any awards prominently on your CV. Your research statement should also make it clear that you wish to work in an area that has good intellectual overlap with at least one Stanford EE faculty member.
  • Q: Is the GRE required for Stanford EE grad school admission?
  • A: No, the GRE is not required, as of July 2020. However, if you happen to take it for another application and your scores are strong (including the verbal parts, e.g. 4.5+ on Analytical Writing, and preferably 5+ for native English speakers) then it's totally OK to find some way to "brag" about it somewhere on your application. Be sure to list the % ranking for your GREs too, because without these the scores are hard to interpret.
  • Q: Is there assistance with the graduate program application fee?
  • A: Yes, Stanford has an application for a fee waiver. Be sure to pay attention to any deadlines on that page.
  • Q: I got into the MS program, can I transfer to the PhD program?
  • A: If you want to pursue a PhD, please apply to the PhD program directly. It is possible to "switch" from MS to PhD in EE, but this means you have to re-apply. (I don't like this either, but that is the rule right now.) Ideally, you would start research with a group during your MS, then re-apply to the EE PhD either in your first or second year, requesting a reference letter from the Stanford-based advisor. If you are only interested in doing an MS at Stanford, then your timeline and our research timelines are not well aligned. In other words, we will always give preference to students who want to be in our group for the long term (e.g. 4.5 to 6 years).
  • Q: How long does it take to get a PhD in your group?
  • A: On average 4.5 to 5.5 years. It depends on the project, how hard we work, and what challenges we encounter.
  • Q: Do you co-advise students?
  • A: Yes. At any given time there are 2-3 students in the group who are formally co-advised, and everyone else works closely with at least one other faculty member, or with external academic and industry collaborators. In essence, everyone in the group is highly collaborative and co-advised in some manner!
  • Q: Is your group collaborative?
  • A: Yes, and proud of it! In the past ~10 yrs at Stanford we have collaborated (and co-authored manuscripts) with over 30 groups across 10 departments at Stanford and SLAC. We haven't done a similar survey for our collaborators off-campus, but they are probably even more numerous. For example, in 2021-22 we published with Univ. Washington, Technion (Israel), Duke, TSMC, NIST, Georgia Tech, Natl. Univ. Singapore (NUS), Penn State, SF State, Hong Kong Poly., Univ. Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), KAUST, UC Davis, and Aalto Univ.
  • Q: How do you publish?
  • A: Please see here and look at our publications page. Over the years, our graduating PhD students have each published, on average, 12 journal papers (3 as first-author) and 15 conference abstracts (5 as first-author).
  • Q: Why should I come to Stanford (and join the Pop Lab)?
  • A: We pursue a well-balanced combination of fundamental and applied, experimental and theoretical research. We benefit from world-class facilities and collaborators. Almost all meetings have food (or cookies and coffee). We like to set world records at nano-things. You'll learn how to publish interesting papers and give talks that lead to "best student" awards. Alumni who hobnobbed with #44. Location in the sunnier side of the wonderful SF Bay Area.
  • Q: How is your group run?
  • A: We have one group meeting per week that everyone attends, and 3-4 subgroup meetings every other week. The main group meeting has one formal research presentation and one literature review presentation, within 90-min. Subgroup meetings are smaller and often function as "therapy sessions" where attendees bring 2-3 slides with their latest results or failures and we drill deeper. As of this writing, subgroup meetings are around themes of Energy, Memory, Fab, and 2D Materials/Devices. The latter is joint with other groups including Tony Heinz, Andy Mannix, Stacey Bent, Fang Liu, Felipe da Jornada, and David Goldhaber-Gordon's. My door is always open for 1:1 meetings, which are most useful before deadlines or to discuss new ideas, etc.
  • Q: Do you have group social events?
  • A: Yes, as a group we have at least two big social events per year. In the Winter there's the Group Tahoe Trip, where we rent a cabin and spend two days cooking, skiing, hiking, or snow-shoeing around Lake Tahoe. In the Summer there's the Group BBQ, where we grill and play sports including volleyball and soccer. Students also self-organize various hiking trips and movie nights, and they stay connected via Facebook, Slack, and Zoom.
  • Q: How many people have been in the group and where do they go afterwards?
  • A: In March 2022, we welcomed our 40th PhD student. Our alumni include 30 PhD students and 11 post-docs. Approximately one third went to academic positions after leaving the group (6 are currently professors), and all others to the electronics industry (e.g. Apple, Applied Materials, Intel, Micron, Samsung, TSMC) or to government research labs. Over the years, our lab has also hosted over 40 undergraduate researchers, 11 of which have written Honors theses. The group make-up has been near 50% women since 2017.

updated Nov 2024 by Eric Pop