Departmental Overview

KU's EEB Department has an excellent graduate program; our PhD program was recently ranked as on the top 10 programs in the nation by the National Research Council (pdf). We offer M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in three disciplines: Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Plant Biology, and Entomology.

Students receive professional preparation through a wide range of course offerings, training in proposal preparation, professional development, and a host of special seminars. Our seminar series includes presentations by leading researchers in many disciplines, and there is ample opportunity for graduate students to meet our invited guests for discussions and networking.

Our Record of Success

The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at KU has a long history of preparing some of the best scientists in the world for their careers. Notable graduates include Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich (Ph.D. 1957; Bing Professor of Population Studies, and President, Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University); Dr. Pamela S. Soltis (Ph.D. 1986; Curator, Laboratory of Molecular Systematic Evolutionary Genetics, University of Florida); Dr. David Hillis (Ph.D. 1985; Alfred W. Roark Centennial Professor, Section of Integrative Biology and Center for Computational Biology and Informatics, University of Texas at Austin); Dr. Darrel Frost (Ph.D. 1988; Associate Dean of Science and Associate Curator of Herpetology, American Museum of Natural History).

EEB faculty, post-docs, and graduate students actively participate in studying ecology and evolutionary biology around the globe in such places as Antarctica, Latin America, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and the Canary Islands. In the past 5 years alone:

• 11 of our students received NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants.
• 4 were Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellows,
• 7 are trainees in the C-CHANGE IGERT program

Recent graduate students and postdocs from KU's EEB program have started faculty positions at Louisiana State University, the University of Vermont, Colby College, Central Washington University, and Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica.

If you are interested in grad school in EEB, please check out the full version of this page.