Ph.D Program

Research Options

The University of Oregon has active research graduate programs in many areas, including all the scientific disciplines. The Department of Biology encourages collaboration with other departments. In addition to the regular science departments, the UO has several internationally recognized research programs:

The Institute of Neuroscience, whose faculty members come from the biology, psychology, computer and information science, and human physiology departments;

The Institute of Molecular Biology, maintained jointly by the biology, chemistry, and physics departments;

The Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, maintained by the biology department at Charleston, Oregon, on Coos Bay, and

The Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, established in 2002,which promotes and facilitates research and graduate education in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Within each area, faculty members offer broad training through graduate courses, continuing seminar programs, weekly literature reviews, and research conferences in laboratory groups. The emphasis is on close instructional and research contact between students and faculty members.

Several members of the departmental staff with interests beyond these core areas serve as bridges between interest groups. Students whose interests cross conventional boundaries may follow training programs matched to their interests. The specific research interests of faculty members are described in detail on the Life Sciences page.

Faculty members are grouped in the major areas of biological research at the university; each grouping contains a description of the research carried out by biology faculty members with active research programs as well as a list of other participating faculty members, including those from other departments.

Students who have earned Ph.D. degrees from this department hold faculty positions or postdoctoral fellowships in many major universities throughout the world. At present, the department has 88 graduate students enrolled in the Ph.D. program and 17 additional graduate students working for their M.S. degree. They are an active group and contribute significantly to the vitality of their own education.