Funding Graduate School

Graduate students in integrative biology are fully supported as graduate teaching assistants, graduate research assistants, fellows or a combination during their graduate studies. Teaching assistants and research assistants receive a stipend and full tuition coverage. In addition, graduate students can also apply for various internal scholarships, fellowships and awards via the Graduate School. Support is contingent upon making satisfactory progress toward their degree completion.

Since its inception in 1952, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) has awarded more than 60,000 fellowships. These prestigious fellowships recognize and support the research of outstanding graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Students may be pursuing either a M.S. or a Ph.D. The fellowship covers three years of financial support within a five-year period. In 2022, nearly 2,200 awards were offered nationally. Over the years, integrative biology students have been very successful in receiving GRFP awards.

IB graduate students will be supported as graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) during some terms. Our Ph.D. students are required to teach at least three terms. However, most of them teach more. A typical term load is teaching two lab sections of a general biology course or a human anatomy and physiology course under the guidance of the course instructor.

Some IB graduate students may be supported as graduate research assistants during certain terms. Such support is contingent upon their major professor’s funding. This is ideal for field seasons and allows students to be off-campus while conducting experiments or collecting data in the field. GRA support could also free up time for thesis writing during a student’s last term.

Beginning in 2023, IB will fund a limited number of students as .40 FTE GRAs with Summer Graduate Research Awards. The announcement and application will go to our current students in winter term via the IB email listserv.

Students are encouraged to write grant and fellowship funding proposals. Such funding not only provides financial support for research projects, but also frees up a student’s time for research during the fellowship period. Over the years, IB graduate students have been very successful in obtaining both internal awards and external fellowship funding.