Graduate Field of Zoology

Description of Field
The Field of Zoology 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 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 have excellent opportunities for intellectual interaction and broad interdisciplinary training.

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