Graduate Field of Zoology & Wildlife Conservation

New training opportunity!
Faculty in the Field of Zoology and Wildlife Conservation have multiple collaborations with scientists at the Conservation and Research Center of the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park. We are currently developing new opportunities for joint graduate training that involve research and mentorship at both sites. If you are interested in applying for such a program, please note this on your application and contact the Office of Graduate Education.

Description of Field: The Field of Zoology & Wildlife Conservation is the descendent of one of the earliest areas of advanced study established at Cornell. However, the study of contemporary zoology is too vast to be represented by a single graduate field. Indeed, the biological sciences at Cornell are represented by scientists in about 30 specialized fields. The focus of the Graduate Field of Zoology & Wildlife Conservation is on vertebrate and invertebrate studies at the organismic level, emphasizing comparative, functional, and developmental morphology.

Many of our faculty and students have in taxon-oriented or physiological ecological approaches to the study of life. The Field's emphasis in recruiting faculty and students is on graduate training in vertebrate morphological sciences, although other areas of organismal biology are encouraged. Our focus complements areas of emphasis in other fields, including molecular development in the field of Genetics and Development, in exercise physiology in the field of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, and in evolutionary theory in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

In the context of Cornell's breadth in the zoological sciences and emphasis on flexible, individualized graduate training programs, graduate students in the Field of Zoology & Wildlife Conservation have excellent opportunities for intellectual interaction and broad interdisciplinary training.

The faculty in the Field of Zoology & Wildlife Conservation encompass four of the Colleges in the University and eleven different academic departments.