Master of Science - Biological Science - Thesis Option

The Department of Biology at Colorado State University offers MS and PhD degrees in Biological Science. Our department includes faculty members and research professionals with diverse interests; we study everything from molecules to ecosystems. Because of this, graduate school in our department offers an exciting opportunity to interact with life scientists from a wide range of biological disciplines. In addition, many of our students and faculty participate in interdisciplinary graduate programs that bring together labs from different departments. We believe that exposure to a wide range of topics sparks creativity, producing integrative, multi-disciplinary thinkers with the breadth necessary to ask big questions.

Our current graduate student body includes 24 MS students, 23 PSM students, and 64 PhD students, many of whom are supported by competitive national and international fellowships (e.g. NSF Graduate Student Research Fellowships, Fulbright Foreign Student Fellowships, and government fellowships from multiple foreign countries). Our students’ research takes them to field sites and collaborating labs within Colorado, across the United States, and around the world. They present their work at national and international meetings, and they publish in top scientific journals.

Our graduate students are the heart and soul of many of our research programs, and they serve critical roles in undergraduate teaching through their roles as Graduate Teaching Assistants. Fostering the success of our graduate students — building their skills in research, teaching, and outreach — is a major goal of our department. Our students have gone on to careers at research universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, and both public and private high schools. They are research scientists and consultants in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and investigators at state and federal agencies. We celebrate our students’ hard-won successes!