Graduate Study in Biology

The Department is home to approximately 90 graduate students. Collectively they make up largest segment of the research community, which includes about 40 regular faculty, 40 auxiliary faculty, 40 postdoctoral researchers, 80 undergraduates, and 50 laboratory staff. But besides being numerous, graduate students are central to the scientific and social life of the Department in many ways. For example, because graduate research projects push the limits of current knowledge they tend to be relatively interdisciplinary and often catalyze scientific interactions of various kinds among members of the student's advisory committee. Similarly, graduate core seminars often focus on emerging issues and attract informal participation by faculty and postdocs who attend purely out of interest. And of all talks given in the department, graduate thesis defenses draw the largest audiences.

Theories differ as to why our graduate training program is so successful, but for whatever reasons, it clearly does work. Almost all students who enter the program complete their degrees and then go on to careers in biology. Our Ph.D.s work both in academia and in a great variety of non-academic applications including conservation, biotechnology, and medical research. Many have become leaders in their fields.

Students enter the Biology Graduate Program either through the Department's own admissions process, or through one of several campus-wide programs that are organized around particular disciplines. Each of these programs requires its own separate application. The link below leads to information and application materials for the Biology Graduate Program.

The campus-wide graduate training programs in Biological Chemistry, Molecular Biology, and Neuroscience maintain their own web sites where information and application materials may be found. The Department of Biology hosts the Microbial Biology Program and an informal training focus in Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology.

The links below lead to additional information about graduate study in the Department of Biology.
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