Top Masters Programs in Biology and Biological Sciences

Students in the MIT Biology PhD program come from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds and they value this diversity. MIT biology use a holistic evaluation process to identify students of outstanding promise. This includes assessing preparation, aptitude, and motivation based on coursework, previous research experiences, and other scientific accomplishments.

Letters of recommendation and a personal essay are key parts of the application that help us understand each student’s interests, preparation, and unique circumstances. MIT biology do not require GRE scores and do not use numerical cutoffs (e.g., GPA) at any stage of evaluation. Importantly, they strive to identify students who have taken full advantage of the opportunities afforded to them, recognizing that the extent or nature of these opportunities will vary widely.

The Systems, Synthetic, and Quantitative Biology PhD Program aims to explain how higher level properties of complex biological systems arise from the interactions among their parts. This field requires a fusion of concepts from many disciplines, including biology, computer science, applied mathematics, physics and engineering. Students with backgrounds in any of these disciplines are encouraged to apply.

Through coursework and collaborative research, we aim to enable students to combine experimental and theoretical approaches to develop physical and quantitative models of biological processes. The Program aims to introduce students to the tools that are now available, and to help them select important unsolved problems in biology and medicine that may now be possible to address using quantitative and theoretical approaches.

GRE scores are no longer required for admission. If applying to the program causes financial hardship, you may request an application fee waiver by emailing [email protected].

The training for a Ph.D. in Biology is focused on helping students achieve their goals of being a successful research scientist and teacher, at the highest level. Students work closely with an established advisor and meet regularly with a committee of faculty members to facilitate their progress. The Biology Ph.D. program is part of the larger Biosciences community at Stanford, which includes doctorate programs in the basic science departments at Stanford Medical School.

There are two tracks within the Biology Ph.D. program:

1. Cell, Molecular and Organismal Biology

2. Ecology and Evolution

All tracks are focused on excellence in research and teaching in their respective areas; where there are differences between the tracks.

The Graduate Program in Biophysical Sciences is fundamentally different from most graduate programs in the sciences. Students in the Biophysical Sciences Program select two mentors with disparate expertise from amongst the UChicago faculty and launch an interdisciplinary project between these two research groups. In this way, we enable top students to explore the deep interface between the physical and the biological views of natural science. We provide our students with the research opportunities, training, community, and facilities they need to knit together existing disciplines and to create entirely new fields. Collaboration and cross-disciplinary communication are required elements of the training. Today, the program integrates over 70 faculty members' research groups across the Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, Clinical Medicine, and Engineering.

A doctoral degree is offered by the Program in Cell, Molecular, Developmental Biology, and Biophysics (CMDB). CMDB graduate students participate in a core curriculum including molecular biology, cellular biology, developmental biology, and biophysics. Students continue to broaden their knowledge in these areas throughout their graduate training while they specialize in their own research areas. Through this cross-training, PhDs emerge from the CMDB program prepared to tackle complex problems in 21st-century biosciences.

The CMDB program includes faculty from Johns Hopkins University’s departments of Biology, Biophysics, and Chemistry, as well as from the Carnegie Institution for Science Department of Embryology.

Living at the intersection of communication and science to advocate for sustainability.

This hands-on concentration trains the next generation of researchers in the environmental biological sciences. Many of your concentration courses will be taken in the Biology. You will have the opportunity to carry out fieldwork and research in a wide range of ecosystems from urban Philadelphia city parks to the cloud forests of Puerto Rico.

Graduates with the Environmental Biology concentration frequently continue their environmental research at the PhD level, or work as biologists in environmental consulting, horticulture or ecology.

Your capstone project is a culmination of your classroom, research and field experiences in the MES program. Your methods and results are unique to your professional and academic goals. Take a look at abstracts by recent MES students with a concentration in Environmental Biology to understand the breadth of capstone topics and formats.

Every student in the Master of Environmental Studies (MES) program creates a research poster designed to showcase their capstone project.

In the Environmental Biology concentration, you will choose from a wide variety of courses in departments and graduate Schools across the University. The following list provides some examples of courses that the program has approved for students to take as part of this concentration.

The lifelong learning division of Penn Arts Sciences.

Graduate students in biology come with very diverse undergraduate preparation—majors in physics, chemistry, mathematics, or psychology, as well as in biology and its various branches. The aims of the graduate program are to provide, for each student, individual depth of experience and competence in a particular chosen major specialty; perception of the nature and logic of biology as a whole; sufficient strength in basic science to allow continued self-education after formal training has been completed and thus to keep in the forefront of changing fields; and the motivation to serve his or her field productively through a long career.

A student may pursue major work leading to the doctoral degree in any of the following subjects: biophysics, cellular biology, developmental biology, genetics, immunology, microbiology, molecular biology and biochemistry, and systems biology. At graduation, a student may choose whether the degree is to be awarded in biology or in the selected major subject. Students who choose to work in Neurobiology may also qualify for a Ph.D. in Biology but are encouraged to enroll in the Neurobiology option.

The biology option does not admit students for work toward the M.S. degree. In special circumstances the M.S. degree may be awarded, provided Institute requirements are met. In general, the degree is not conferred until the end of the second year of residence. The degree does not designate any of the disciplines of the division, but is an M.S. in biology. The 135 units required by the Institute must include any two courses from the series Bi 250 abcd and Bi 252.

Graduate Record Examination (GRE) general tests are optional. You are also encouraged, but not required, to take an advanced test in biology, biochemistry, mathematics, physics, or psychology.

The Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences (IBiS) Program provides the resources and training environment necessary to promote the development of Ph.D. students into independent, creative research scientists and teachers. The program includes approximately 65 training faculty from diverse science and engineering departments on Northwestern's main campus, who are linked by common interests in addressing fundamental questions in the biological and biomedical sciences.

Increasingly, the life sciences require interdisciplinary approaches in order to make essential progress in understanding normal cellular processes, diseases such as cancer, and the development of complex systems. With closely connected faculty from the departments of Molecular Biosciences, Biomedical Engineering, Neurobiology, Chemistry, and Chemical and Biological Engineering, and with strong ties to numerous interdisciplinary centers including the Physical Sciences-Oncology Center, the Center for Cell and Developmental Systems Biology, the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, and the Center for Structural Biology, IBiS promotes innovative research that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries.

IBiS students also benefit from a close-knit scientific community, a supportive advising structure, an active and involved student organization that sponsors scientific and social activities, and a multifaceted professional development program that further prepares them for a broad range of post-degree career options in academia, industry, teaching and other areas.

The Department of Biology offers a diverse and integrative graduate program for students seeking a Ph.D. in the biological sciences. The department provides exciting and interdisciplinary training opportunities in the following broad range of research areas:

1. Ecology (including behavioral ecology, population biology, community ecology, physiological ecology, ecosystem analysis, and biogeochemistry)

2. Cell and molecular biology (including cellular physiology, molecular genetics, developmental biology, developmental genetics, genomics, and bioinformatics, in a variety of model systems including plants, animals, and microbes)

3. Functional organismal biology (including comparative physiology, functional morphology, biomechanics, and animal behavior)

4. Evolutionary biology (including population genetics, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary morphology, macroevolution, biogeography, and systematics)

Faculty also participate in the university programs in Cell and Molecular Biology, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Ecology, and Structural Biology and Biophysics. These programs link researchers across different departments and schools at Duke, most notably the basic sciences departments in the Duke University Medical Center and the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. There are also strong links with the Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences, the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, the Center for Nonlinear and Complex Systems, and the departments of Evolutionary Anthropology, Philosophy, and Psychological and Brain Sciences.

The Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems and Society (EEES) program encompasses all areas of ecology, evolutionary biology, ecosystems and related disciplines, while the Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) program spans topics from biophysics to molecular pathogenesis. EEES students may help an MCB lab with modeling and statistics, while MCB labs may assist EEES students with molecular techniques—just one example of the many ways these groups create synergy.

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) is one of two clusters within Dartmouth’s graduate program in Ecology, Evolution, Environment, and Society (EEES). The focus of the EEB cluster is the advancement of basic knowledge in ecology and evolutionary biology. Areas of inquiry include: the perception and responses of organisms to their environment; the dynamics of genomes, organisms, populations and communities in ecological and evolutionary time; and the properties of communities and ecosystems that permit and constrain resilience in the presence of environmental change.