example recommendation letter

example recommendation letter

As a beginning independent investigator, chances are you will soon have to write
a letter of recommendation on behalf of a student, a postdoc, or even a colleague.
Your job as letter writer will be to describe the candidate’s strengths and weak-nesses as they relate to the position or program in a way that is both thoughtful
and personal. A letter that falls short of this goal will be of little value to those
evaluating applications and will not help the candidate get what he or she is after.
So, it pays to put in the necessary effort and time to write a “good” letter. This
chapter provides insights and advice from experienced investigators on how to
do so. It is not meant to be prescriptive but rather to offer some suggestions from
which you can pick and choose.


The following is a good letter, and it may actually help Mr. Smith.

Dear Selection Committee,

I am writing this letter to strongly recommend Mr. Smith for your program. I know Mr. Smith because he worked in my lab for one summer. Mr. Smith came to me a year ago to discuss the possibility of spending a summer working in my lab. I met withhim and outlined a project. I gave him some background reading at our first meeting. By the time of our second meeting he had read what I had given him and prepared a two-page project description. This level of effort is typical of a good medical student who joins my lab, so I agreed to take him on for a summer.

During his time in my lab, Mr. Smith demonstrated a good work ethic and interpersonal skills. We outlined a scope of work to be completed, and he successfully completed that work in the time required. He putin extra hours as necessary in order to meet
specific deadlines that I set. I teamed him up with another student to work on the project. He seemed to work well with the other student, and I found him very personable. Mr. Smith put in sufficient work to be a co-author on a manuscript. Overall, I would
strongly recommend Mr. Smith for a position in your program.

Sincerely,

Richard Hughes, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor


Letter for Stephen Hoffmann

Search and Screen Committee
Department of Bacteriology
University of Cambridge
Boston, MA 01237

Dear Members of the Search Committee,

It is my pleasure to recommend Dr. Stephen Hoffmann for the position of Assistant Professor in your department. Stephen completed his Ph.D. in my lab and is one of the most outstanding researchers to emerge from my lab. I recommend him to you highly.
In my lab Dr. Hoffmann cloned and characterized the gliDgene from Cytophaga johnsoniae. He made the intriguing discovery that the GliD protein is required for gliding behavior in Cy-tophagaand its human homologue is associated with a highly metastatic form of breast cancer.

This observation suggests that there may be common features in bacterial gliding motility and mobility of human tumor cells. Dr. Hoffmann initiated a highly productive collaboration with Professor David Whitely that led to the crystallization and high resolution structure of the GliD protein. Dr. Hoffmann brought that work to fruition in a PNASpaper, on which he is the senior author. In addition to the PNASpaper, Dr. Hoffmann published three other papers from his thesis, which attest to his hard work, biological insight, and outstanding writing skills. Dr. Hoffmann proved himself an outstanding researcher and valued colleague.

Dr. Hoffmann continued to produce original research as a postdoc in Jim Wooley’s lab working on Bacillus subtilis development. Once again, Dr. Hoffmann discovered a gene that is found in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, this time in a search for sporulation genes in B. subtilis. He identified a new sporulation gene, designated spoW, which has a mammalian homologue that  appears to be associated with lymphocyte differentiation and maturation. Although that work is not yet published, it has a bright future. The project was technically challenging, but Dr. Hoff-mann has surmounted all of the obstacles and a genetic and biochemical analysis of the spoWallele and its product will be ready for publication soon. Given Dr. Hoffmann’s past record in publishing research, I have no doubt that this work will be published in a top-tier journal.

Dr. Hoffmann proved himself to be a capable mentor and teacher. He has supervised three
undergraduate researchers. He is clearly able to transmit his passion and talent for research to young scientists. Similarly, his classroom teaching was met with rave reviews. Dr. Hoffmann is one of my few colleagues to whom I will entrust my class when I travel. Dr. Hoffmann was also a terrific citizen and a leader in my lab. He handled responsibility well, was resourceful, and took initiative to maintain equipment and ensure that safety standards were met. He took on many of the responsibilities of a faculty member and excelled in everything he did.

In short, I give Stephen my highest recommendation. He is one of my finest colleagues—an outstanding researcher and talented teacher. He has demonstrated an uncanny ability to un-mask genes that play parallel roles in bacteria and mammals, and I expect him to be one of the leading researchers in his field. He would be a good catch for any department and I urge you to consider his candidacy seriously.
Sincerely,

Theodore Corvallis
Distinguished University Professor