Joining the Lab

(updated 2/4/2025)

What NOT to do:

• Please do not call me Mam/Ma’am. It does not match my gender identity and makes me very uncomfortable. Stick to Doctor/Dr. Martin, Professor/Prof. Martin, or even just Lara.
• I’m not interested in your TOEFL/GRE scores or your past grades. While they (along with the other components of your application) are looked at in your application to the school, they don’t tell me much about how you will do with research. If you do want to tell me about your education, let me know if you’ve taken any classes that might be relevant to the research I do (e.g., an AI or NLP course) or if you’ve done any related projects.

For current UMBC Masters/Undergrads:

I am currently not taking on any new students.

For prospective PhD students:

The application due date for Fall 2025 has already passed.

Funding

Your time and skills are valuable; you should never work for free. There are, however, some options for times when I don’t have adequate funding for you.

• Goldwater Scholars (undergrad only)
• Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) (undergrad only)
• Undergraduate Research Awards (URA) (undergrad only)
• Summer Research Scholarships (undergrad only)
• Graduate Fellowships
• NSF’s CSGrad4US Fellowship (graduate only; must be US citizen/resident)
• NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) (graduate only; must be US citizen/resident)
• Research for course credit
  • CMSC 499/699: Independent Study
  • CMSC 698: Project in Computer Science
  • CMSC 799: Masters Thesis
• Working in collaboration with another faculty member. If you’d like to work with me and there is another faculty member that has funding available, I’d be happy to talk about collaboration.

List based off of Dr. Tejas Gokhale’s.