Dear Professor Ali Ahmed

This is I think the fourth time I've received an e-mail from someone asking for a possible Masters or PhD opportunity at UW. This time it's a student somewhere in Sweden, who is 'really interested in doing research in intelligent control, especially in adaptive control which depends on artificial neural networks and fuzzy logic'. Wow. If only I knew the first thing about all that stuff.

I don't understand why people mistake me to be a professor. Nowhere on my work profile does it say I'm a professor, or that I even completed a PhD. I think people who can't do simple research into who they e-mail in hopes of a graduate student opportunity don't deserve to get a response.

I suppose I could refer this guy and others like him to my supervisor or other professors in the group. But I have a feeling that if he e-mailed me, he most certainly e-mailed the actual faculty members listed on the group web site.