We seem to have lost Mark Brown who was looking for an undergrad / first degree programme, and who also started this thread, and geniussalmonpatty who looks set to finish up on an environmental studies degree and also might need some ideas on who to contact for an MSc program.
Mark Brown - have you had any luck?
geniussalmonpatty - would you like to get a list going of the active karst biology researchers too? Are you interested in visible creatures or bacteria?
In all cases here is another concrete thing you should all consider doing. Go to a conference!
For Jonny - you should look at "Karst from recent to reservoirs: International conference on paleokarst & multi-permeability flow systems" (
http://karstwaters.org/paleokarst/) Take a road trip; get there somehow. There is likely to be somebody from your area going there anyway. This one is going to be drawing in an international crowd, with a good number of people from Europe. Get ahold of John Mylroie, or Ira D. Sasowsky, who are both organizers. Explain the situation and offer to volunteer your labor before, during and after the conference. You might also find that costs can be moderated if you are flexible about shoring rooms, or heck, taking the floor. This might be doing AV, shifting tables, distributing name tags, all the types of things that get you face to face with everyone there. In a matter of one week in June, you will have leap frogged so far forward in figuring out what, who, where, $, and everything that might be possible.
For your interests, you should also be looking at the Sinkhole conference that is held every couple of years:
http://content.asce.org/conferences/KARST08/index.htmlgeniussalmonpatty - you might also benefit from volunteering and at the paleokarst conference as it is looks set to be the biggest draw this year - although there are going to be few biospeleologist or critter people there. However there are others that might be better suited to you: This one unfortunately was last year -
http://hoffman.wku.edu/karst2007/k2007.html There is also the second Appalachian Karst Symposium coming up in May which do you well -
http://www.etsu.edu/physics/appkarst/. The perfect one for you might the International Symposium on Subterranean Biology - but it is a long swim away and unless you are thinking of launching yourself internationally might not be worth it. (
http://www.issb2008.org.au/ - but boy does that look cool)
Finally - Don't overlook advertising your interests at the NSS convention. There are a number of the cave scientists who do show up there, although a large number do not.
I know that money and time is always limited, but if you can get to the right conference, then it is like going to a custom tailored graduate school fair suiting your interests and needs. Don't be shy about telling people that you are looking for graduate school opportunities. Put it on your name tag "Seeking karst geology MSc project". Don't be shy about "interviewing" the researchers too - ask them questions and talk to as many of their current and previous graduate students as possible to find out what working with them is like. The best scientist can be a horrible supervisor, while your best fit might even be with the person who just got their faculty position and is just starting out. If you know you might be interested in working with somebody, do get a little bit prepared by sending them an email beforehand asking for time for a beer/coffee/etc, ask them for some publications too.
Anyway - time for more tea and more decongestants. I hope the above makes some sense.
Trish