The Doctoral Program

1. Introduction

The doctoral program is interdepartmental and results from the collaboration of several academic units: Applied Mathematics; Computer Science; Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; and Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry. The Ph.D. degree will be conferred by one of the participating departments.

Specifically:

In Applied Mathematics, the degree will be called the Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, with an annotation that the student satisfied computational biology requirements.

In Computer Science, the degree will be called the Ph.D. in Computer Science and Computational Biology.

In Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry (MCB), the degree will be called the Ph.D. in Biology and Computational Biology.

See General Requirements

This is summarized in the following table.

2. Admissions

Applying to the Program

The program will assume the following prerequisites: mathematics through intermediate calculus, linear algebra and discrete mathematics, demonstrated programming skill, and at least one undergraduate course in chemistry and in molecular biology. Exceptional strengths in one area may compensate for limited background in other areas, but some proficiency across the disciplines must be evident for admission.

Students wishing to join the CMB graduate program must address their applications to the Graduate School. As instructed by the CCMB website, each applicant must select one of the four tracks detailed in Section 1. This selection specifies the student’s home department.

Applications are directed to the Graduate School, which is the authority granting admission. Applications are forwarded to the CCMB for evaluation, to be carried out by the CCMB Admission Committee, which in turn will forward applications to the appropriate unit. Final recommendations will be acted upon by the Graduate School.

Admitted students will be individually interviewed by CCMB faculty so as to recommend, if necessary, a personalizing training program, drawn from undergraduate offerings and designed to achieve a background comparable to that of our Sc.B. in Computational Biology, outlined below: