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 is called the Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, with an annotation that the student satisfied computational biology requirements.

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

This is summarized in the following table.

See Program Requirements

2. Admissions

2.1 Program Prerequisites

The program assumes 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 applying to the CMB graduate program do so through the Graduate School online process: https://apply.embark.com/Grad/brown. Each applicant must select one of the four tracks, detailed above, and express that selection in the personal statement. This selection specifies the student’s home department.

2.2 Application

The Graduate School forwards applications to the CCMB Admission Committee, which in turn will forward applications to the appropriate unit. Final recommendations will be acted upon by the Graduate School, which makes offers of admission. Application Deadline is January 3, 2010.

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: