The department welcomes applications from highly motivated students who have completed a bachelor's degree or its equivalent. Applicants must submit Graduate Record Examination scores including the advanced test in either biology, chemistry, physics, or mathematics. Prerequisites include differential and integral calculus, biostatistics, physics, general and organic chemistry, physical chemistry, and biology or biochemistry. Students may make up specific deficiencies after admission. There is no language requirement.
Computer literacy is recommended.
Degree Requirements Students are expected to exhibit competence in three major disciplines, as evidenced by passage of a comprehensive qualifying examination, by the beginning of their third year of full-time study. Every effort is made to shape this third area of concentration to conform to the student's professional goals. Upon successful completion of the qualifying examination students devote full time to their thesis research. A student may select a faculty sponsor and a topic for thesis research at any time during his or her first two years of study. Award of the Ph.D. degree is dependent upon acceptance of this thesis research and related areas of science.