Neuroscience - PhD

In contrast to the large interdepartmental neuroscience programs that are common at many institutions, our graduate program is organized entirely within the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. The wide range of faculty interests allows broad instruction across the entire field of neuroscience, and this provides several advantages for graduate students:

(1) the faculty is strongly committed to maintaining and continuously developing the program;
(2) collaboration is enhanced due to the close proximity of most faculty laboratories; and
(3) class sizes remain small so that students receive individual attention.

Overall, there is a sense of belonging to a family, rather than of being a small cog in an impersonal machine.

Faculty and students in Neurobiology and Behavior have a common goal: to understand how the brain produces behavior that adapts to a changing environment. Progress toward this goal requires a command of both a research specialty and its broader context. Our graduate training gives students a broad foundation in neuroscience, technical proficiency in an area of interest, and an understanding of the fundamentals and subtleties of that area so that they can address intellectual and technical issues with finesse. Since we consider teaching to be an integral part of a graduate education, our students also acquire experience in teaching. First year students have the option of quarterly laboratory rotations.