Postdoc cover letter example
A postdoc’s cover letter says what you would research in the post, shows you can deliver it with one output others use, and gives the signs you are ready to lead. This one goes with the postdoc CV, for a research fellow post at a river science institute.
Read the letter as text
Dr Ruth Adeyemi
York · [email protected] · 07700 900628
9 October 2026
Professor Helen Ashworth
Director, Institute for River Science
Westbridge University
Hollis Lane
York YO9 9ZX
Dear Professor Ashworth
Application for Research Fellow in River Restoration (ref. RF2611)
I am applying for the Research Fellow in River Restoration post. I am a freshwater ecologist and a postdoctoral research associate at Fenmoor University, and I would like to lead a study of how quickly invertebrates return to restored reaches, using the environmental DNA methods I have developed.
Over four years on a five-river study, I designed the sampling of 1,240 water samples and developed a method that detects 38 invertebrate families from one litre of water. I wrote it up as streamDNA, an open-source R package that three rivers trusts and two university groups now use, and the work has produced six papers, three as first author.
I co-supervise two PhD students, have trained eleven people in eDNA sampling and was co-investigator on a £48,000 partnership grant with a rivers trust. Your institute’s monitoring sites on four restored rivers would let me follow recovery over time, which my current project cannot.
My CV and a two-page research plan are attached. I would be glad to talk about the plan at interview. Thank you for considering my application.
Yours sincerely
Dr Ruth Adeyemi
Fictional letter from Dr Ruth Adeyemi, the applicant in the postdoc CV example. Every person and employer in it is invented.
Why each paragraph is there
I am applying for the Research Fellow in River Restoration post. I am a freshwater ecologist and a postdoctoral research associate at Fenmoor University, and I would like to lead a study of how quickly invertebrates return to restored reaches, using the environmental DNA methods I have developed.
The post, who you are now, and the research you would do in it, in one paragraph.
Over four years on a five-river study, I designed the sampling of 1,240 water samples and developed a method that detects 38 invertebrate families from one litre of water. I wrote it up as streamDNA, an open-source R package that three rivers trusts and two university groups now use, and the work has produced six papers, three as first author.
One method, its numbers and who uses it: evidence you can deliver.
I co-supervise two PhD students, have trained eleven people in eDNA sampling and was co-investigator on a £48,000 partnership grant with a rivers trust. Your institute’s monitoring sites on four restored rivers would let me follow recovery over time, which my current project cannot.
Readiness to lead, and a specific reason for this institute.
My CV and a two-page research plan are attached. I would be glad to talk about the plan at interview. Thank you for considering my application.
What is attached and a polite close.