Graduate Programs MD/PhD Opportunities Neural Engineering Course Descriptions Undergraduate Programs

Students with undergraduate degrees in biology or psychology, any of the quantitative sciences or any of the engineering disciplines are invited to apply to the Committee on Computational Neuroscience for graduate study, typically leading to a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience. Computational neuroscience is inherently interdisciplinary, and most students doing graduate work in this area will have strengths in one of the relevant areas and weaknesses in others. Program requirements in the Committee are designed to address background deficiencies, so students with uneven backgrounds should not hesitate to apply. A year of college level calculus is an absolute prerequisite. Ideally, applicants should have some collegiate level course work in biology (optimally including an introductory neurobiology course), an introductory psychology course, and some mathematics (such as linear algebra and elementary differential equations) beyond calculus. Students who have not had prior exposure to linear algebra and differential equations may be asked to take appropriate courses in these areas before taking the mathematics sequence within the computational neuroscience curriculum. Students who are interested in Computational Neuroscience, but who prefer earning a Ph.D. in a cognate discipline can do so by pursuing a Ph.D. through the departments of Computer Science, Mathematics, Neurobiology, Physics, Psychology, or Statistics, and taking courses in the Committee on Computational Neuroscience. The University of Chicago welcomes applications from minority students who are members of groups underrepresented in science.  For information on the BSD efforts to recruit and retain minority students, please see the webpage, Opportunities for Minority Graduate Students in the Biological Sciences