Potential supervisor question

[globy321]

So I had an interview with a potential supervisor today and we talked for about 2 hours. I told him I am planning to apply to med school when I finish graduate studies. He said he is very glad that I told him I am planning to apply to med school and he said he will support me with my goal of getting in med school.

 

What worries me is that he said he moved from U of T to the current university about 6 months ago and he said he moved his lab this April. When I looked at the lab there were boxes with research stuff and the lab did not look like it's ready for research but he said it will be ready very soon. Is this a potential problem for me if I want to have productive graduate studies?

 

Also, I asked him about graduate studies and he said he has only one international student. He said he had another student who was working with him at U of T. He said the student was doing fine and he wanted to apply dental school but he got wait-listed when he applied. He said the student had a breakdown of depression but I'm not sure if the breakdown was due to the supervisor being not supportive or was it student's fault. Is this a bad sign that this is a shady supervisor?

 

He also said he might involve another supervisor in my project which would act as a co-supervisor because he is new to this institution. The co-supervisor is the director of research at this institution. Is this another bad sign?

 

He had one paper which was published in Nature Medicine and he showed me that paper. We talked about potential research topics and he gave me two topics. He was explaining one of the topics in Neuroscience and he said they have preliminary data that shows that the project will work and he said he is 90% confident that the project will work but again he emphasized that this is science so you never know what you will find. What do you guys think of this supervisor?

[LostLamb]

How long has his lab been going when at the previous university?

 

Did you ask if you could talk to the dental applicant person or his other student? What about techs, does this prof have any? Did he/she have any? could you ask for their contact information?

 

He is totally right that this is science, and that while he may be sure 90% it will work, i don't believe it. Never works the way they promise ....you have to be a huge optimist as a researcher/research supervisor if you want to last.

 

I can't say either way how this supervisor sounds, since I wasn't really there and party to the conversation. What does your gut feeling tell you?