The Department of Biological Sciences offers a range of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral training programs. Home to a vibrant community of life scientists, the department’s research spans the scales of biological organization, from molecules and cells to organisms, populations, species, and communities. An emphasis on interdisciplinary and collaborative research gives faculty and students opportunities to investigate a diverse array of living systems using a wide variety of research approaches and tools — from X-ray crystallography, molecular assays, and computational genomic analyses to advanced microscopy, magnetic resonance imaging, and field research in Antarctica, Africa, and the Pacific Ocean.

Faculty from the department’s three sections — Marine Environmental Biology, Molecular and Computational Biology, and Neurobiology — direct graduate students in five distinct doctoral programs:

• Molecular Biology
• Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
• Marine Environmental Biology
• Integrative and Evolutionary Biology
• Neuroscience

Associated research centers and institutes include:

• USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies
• USC Center for Excellence in Genomic Sciences
• USC Brain and Creativity Institute
• Andrus Gerontology Center
• Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center
• Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
• Jane Goodall Research Center