The Benning Lab started July 2025 at Cornell University, in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology.

In general, we’re interested in how populations respond to novel environments across space and time. We’ve worked with plants, insects, and microbes in the field and laboratory, and are especially interested in the integration of empirical and theoretical approaches to answer questions in ecology and evolution.

Cornell EEB is a fantastic place to be a scholar, with near endless intellectual and recreational opportunities.

The lab website will be up soon; for now, see opportunities below. There’s lots of exciting science afoot!

Postdoctoral collaborators

We’re interested in sponsoring candidates for postdoctoral fellowships, like the NSF PRFB or Cornell’s Atkinson Fellowship. Reach out to John if you’d like to explore options.

PhD students

We will be recruiting a PhD student to start Fall 2027. The consideration pool to start in Fall 2026 is now closed.

If you’re interested in exploring the prospect of joining the lab for graduate school, please fill out this form. We’ve worked with quite varied approaches and taxa, and are open to a wide range of dissertation topics and systems.

If you do not receive a response in the timeline described on the form, or you have questions that require answers ASAP (e.g., you want to apply for funding opportunities with deadlines), feel free to reach out directly to John. If your question is about lab “fit,” please fill out the inquiry form and I’ll get back to you.

Read more about grad school in Cornell EEB here. And you can compare stipends among similar graduate programs with this great resource created by Michelle L. Gaynor and Rhett M. Rautsaw.

Undergraduate researchers

If you are interested in joining our research team as a Cornell undergraduate, please contact John.