Biology, M.S.

Our graduate program prepares you for further graduate work leading to a Ph.D., provides advanced research and educational opportunities, and prepares you as a manager of coastal and marine resources, trained to deal with contemporary problems in the environment.

Academic and Financial Support

The M.S. in Biology program has a reputation for providing advanced training and hands-on research opportunities.

Our graduate programs operate in a dynamic and growing department with a strong and productive faculty, who are all engaged in active research programs and have substantial publication and grant support records. The graduate programs also integrate well with strong undergraduate biology and marine biology programs.

Our master's degree programs is highly selective, with an average of 110 applications per year over the past six years for fall admission.

Graduate students serve vital roles as teaching assistants for numerous undergraduate laboratory sections. All students in the graduate programs are supported with stipends, either as teaching or research assistants.

Students who are not classified as North Carolina residents are awarded an out-of-state tuition remission or grant that pays the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition. Out-of-state tuition remissions are competitive.

Graduate courses are taught in Dobo and Friday Halls. These facilities include state-of-the-art lecture halls, teaching laboratories, seminar rooms and a computer lab.

The department also has facilities in the Center for Marine Science located a short distance from the campus. Facilities at CMS include a classroom, a large teaching laboratory, aquarium and collection rooms and smaller laboratories for student research.

The department maintains a 2,250-square-foot greenhouse, a vertebrate range and a herbarium.

The Kresge Greenhouse provides facilities for faculty and student research projects and for laboratory exercises.

Classroom and laboratory instruction is supplemented by field trips to adjacent oceanic, estuarine and terrestrial natural laboratories, including the Bluthenthal Wildflower Preserve and the Ev-Henwood Nature Preserve.

The Richard M. Dillaman Bioimaging Facility at UNCW is dedicated to the teaching and training that underpins graduate research.

The facility runs courses in electron microscopy and bioimaging for credit, and research students are also individually trained in every aspect of sample preparation and equipment operation to independently conduct their imaging research.