Ph.D. in Biological Sciences
The mission of the Ph.D. program in Biological Sciences is to train new generations of scientific leaders who make significant and distinctive contributions to society. The department has established a broad range of resources to enable the students to define and achieve their personal mission. With this broad goal in mind, our specific objectives are to mentor students to:
Become contributing, impactful members of their discipline. This requires:
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- Being familiar with literature and history of the field
- Understanding how the discipline has evolved and where it is headed
- Identifying novel and important questions
- Identifying desired personal impact on the field.
- Mastering approaches and techniques
- Appreciating the impact of the discipline on a broader community
- Establishing visible profile in the field
Develop professional skills in:
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- Scientific writing (papers, proposals, traditional and social media)
- Oral presentation
- Team management (including interdisciplinary teams)
- Leadership
- Communication, networking, connecting with community of researchers & science professionals
- Time management, life/work balance
Establish career development plans through:
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- Establishing sense of scholarly citizenship
- Knowing the types of careers paths following from Ph.D. training
- Developing personal career goals
- Appreciating skills required to achieve career goals and how to align personal training with these goals
Ph.D. Student Research Videos
Emily Simon (Linstedt Lab)
Andrew Wolff (Hinman Lab)
Beril Tutuncuoglu, Ph.D.
Scientific Developer,
Emerald Therapeutics
"CMU provides an innovative environment, where technology meets deep scientific thinking. I received constant guidance both for my research projects and career path. I had the opportunity to explore different areas and expand my imagination about what is possible to discover in biology, by taking selective courses and consulting faculty with a broad range of expertise. Through presenting at international conferences, I established scientific collaborations, which lead to significant findings and publications, one of which is in the highly regarded journal Nature. A key perk of being a part of the Department of Biological Sciences is the alumni network of CMU, which consists of overachieving and fearless individuals. As a recent hire of a company started by two CMU alumni, I am excited to continue my pursuit of discovering the unknown and challenging the current limits of experimental sciences."
Santosh Chandrasekaran, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Rehab Neural Engineering Lab
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
"One of the characteristics of CMU that I particularly loved was the extensive levels of collaborations between research groups, even from seemingly unrelated fields. Such exquisite collaborations often further the frontiers of research and being a graduate student at CMU allowed me to lead and be a part of such high quality research. This is primarily due to the excellent faculty at CMU who are always interested in exploring new ideas and are very approachable which gave me immense encouragement .....Pittsburgh also provided ample opportunities to pursue my varied hobbies, be it art and music or skiing and rock climbing. This was particularly important for me as it provided a way to switch off from research and rejuvenate."
Ken Hovis, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean for Educational Initiatives
Mellon College of Science, Carnegie Mellon Univeristy
"As a prospective student in neuroscience, most of the graduate programs I applied to were neuroscience only programs. One of the biggest reasons I am so glad I chose the Biological Sciences graduate program at CMU, is because I not only gained access to excellent training in the field of neuroscience, but I was surrounded by faculty, post-docs, and other graduate students from many other disciplines. This provided me with different perspectives on my research and enabled me to have access to, learn, and incorporate a variety of techniques from different fields during my graduate experience. It also provided me with experience working as part of an interdisciplinary team, which is a very important part of my job now as I work closely with faculty from mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology."