I very strongly recommend that M.S. students wait until the beginning of their second semester at Stony Brook before selecting their masters project. It is much better to spend a semester taking classes and getting to know what area you are really interested in than to grab the first project that will take you on. Typically my M.S. students arrive at Stony Brook in August, select their project in January, work on them in the spring, maybe in the summer, and then a lot the next fall.

I never take on on any M.S. students or Independent Study students in the Fall or the Summer, so there is no value in contacting me then.

Instead, I encourage M.S. students potentially interested in working with me to take my Computational Biology course (CSE 549), which is offered in the fall. In January, I will typically take on three or four of the best masters students who are interested in working me, as judged by their performance in my class (particularly the course project) and their first-semester Stony Brook courses/grades.

Come January, I will also contemplate taking on one or two student/teams with a proposal of a project of their own conception -- if it is sufficiently interesting to me. A suitable project: (1) has an interesting deliverable that will have a life after the completion of your project, such as a website, an app, or a database, and (2) can be completed by you fairly independently. I am looking here for entrepreneurial, self-motivated students.

If this interests you, send me a one page project proposal and your resume at the end of the semester. Good luck!