A Message From The Chair

Chair Message Sarah Milton

The Biological Sciences Department offers the largest undergraduate major at FAU and our courses serve both majors and non-majors across several colleges at the university. The Department is made up of 32 faculty members, three instructors, approximately 135 graduate students and nearly 3,000 undergraduate majors. The Department offers a wide variety of courses and research opportunities for undergraduate students through a Biology Honors Program and directed independent research (DIR) with faculty on several campuses. Our students are a major part of a broad disciplinary research team in the Department, and in each year approximately 105 graduate students and 200 undergraduates work in our research labs. The faculty research focus areas are primarily in organismal biology, environmental science, neuroscience, cell biology and marine science.

We have collaborations with colleagues at several research institutions, including on our Jupiter campus where the cellular neuroscience group is expanding through a joint graduate program with Max Planck Florida Institute. The Jupiter campus also hosts the Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology that has collaborative relationships with The Scripps Research Institute. We also have several full time and affiliate faculty and collaborations with researchers at FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute located at Fort Pierce where students can find marine research opportunities, the Semester by the Sea undergraduate marine immersion program, and graduate courses offered. At the Davie campus, our faculty has collaborative research programs with USGS on Everglades and climate change issues in coordination with FAU’s Center for Environmental Studies (CES). For further information, see individual faculty websites and the programmatic links to courses and research groups within the Department and with our collaborators.