Biological Sciences

Program Category: PhD Programs
Chair: Brent Stockwell
Directors of Graduate Studies: Lars Dietrich, Songtao Jia
Website: https://www.biology.columbia.edu/
Degree Programs: Full-Time: MA, MPhil, PhD
GSAS PhD Dashboard

To view this program's application requirements, please click here.

Please visit this page to learn more about the Biological Science PhD program.

The Biological Sciences PhD program is an interdisciplinary training program based in the highly-esteemed Department of Biological Sciences on Columbia’s Morningside (116th St.) campus in Manhattan.

Research areas include Cancer and Disease Biology; Cell, Developmental and Stem Cell Biology; Evolutionary Biology, Comparative Genomics and Population Genetics; Genome Organization, Maintenance and Expression; Genomics, Computational and Systems Biology; Microbiology; Neuroscience; Structural Biology, Biophysics, Chemical Biology and Biochemistry.

Faculty Mentors, listed here include all active research faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences and selected faculty from the Department of Chemistry and from various departments of Columbia University Medical School. Program faculty laboratories are mostly on the Morningside campus but also on either the Manhattanville (125th St.) or Medical Center campus (168th St.).

Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) also hosts PhD programs in the biomedical sciences, which can be explored here. Applications to both Biological Sciences and a CUIMC program is permitted, but they are separate applications.

Key features of the Biological Sciences program include the following:

  • The constellation of program mentors provides access to world-class research training and engagement in a wide variety of disciplines.
  • The program fosters an interactive, cohesive student community, accentuating transmission of the benefits of the breadth of program approaches and research areas to all.

Special Application Requirements

The Biological Sciences PhD Program requires applicants to enter at least three names of program faculty who might serve as their potential advisor. Please review the list of research faculty and enter the names of your proposed advisors in the space provided in the GSAS application.  Your “primary program subfield” selection provides a further indication of current interests. All subfields are part of the same program.

*To be eligible for admission in GSAS, at least TWO letters must be submitted by academic recommenders. You may include up to four letters in your application, regardless of the number required by your program of interest.