Please read this CAREFULLY BEFORE sending me an email.

1. I am not currently looking to take on MS students for directed research. Please do not send me email in this regard.

2. I will generally only consider taking on MS/PhD students for research projects if they take and do exceptionally well in EE/CS 652 (Wireless Sensor Networks) course which will be offered in Fall '06.

3. I do not plan to offer funding to MS students - my limited resources are often not enough to provide full RA-ships even to all my Ph.D. students.

4. I will generally not commit to advising MS students on a thesis.

5. While strong programming skills may be sufficient in an MS candidate, in PhD students I'm generally looking for strong evidence of analytical/mathematical abilities, as evidenced, say, by your solution (3 pages including equations/figures) to this open-ended modeling problem.

6. I very rarely respond to emails from students who are not already at USC. If you are interested in working with me on a PhD, you should go ahead and apply to the USC EE/CS PhD program through the regular channels, and mention your interest in the personal statement - I do look through PhD applications to both departments to make accept recommendations to strong candidates if I need new students. Please also include in your application materials a list of and online links to/hardcopies of any conference papers/journal papers/theses you have completed to date.

Sincerely,
Bhaskar Krishnamachari