The Department of Biological Sciences

  Welcome to UAA's Department of Biological Sciences!

Our world is experiencing unprecedented change from many sources, natural and human-caused, and biological research is central to understanding their nature and consequences. 
UAA is located in the coastal subarctic of southcentral Alaska, where the northernmost temperate rainforest, boreal tundra and taiga, and freshwater and marine environments come together.  
We see the effects of change every day and not only in the environment and biota surrounding us. Technological innovations are revolutionizing the way we study biology and, here at UAA's Department of Biological Sciences, we are pushing the frontiers of knowledge in an integrated approach to biological research. Integrated knowledge permits a more complete understanding of biological systems that include humans and their activities. In the Circumpolar North, biology-based approaches to complex societal problems are critical and necessary.

The Department of Biological Sciences is currently home to 22 tenure-track faculty members and a strong cohort of adjunct, term and affiliate faculty members. Our faculty has diverse research programs and strengths in ecology, resilience science, evolutionary biology, cell and developmental biology, physiological ecology of plants and animals, genetics, and molecular biology. The research of many departmental faculty members is directed at questions related to life in the north, including physiological adaptations to cold, dark, and extreme environments, and the complex dynamics of ecosystem processes. Biomedical research is an important strength, and many of the faculty participate in the NIH funded INBRE program.

Our department is not just for researchers. We play a critical role in the education of health and life science majors from across the campus, and the department provides B.A., B.S., and honors program options for over 500 majors. A productive graduate program includes over 30 M.S. and Ph.D. students. We are known for our commitment to provide undergraduate majors with maximum opportunities in faculty-directed field and lab research, ranging from molecular and cell-based studies of genetics and toxicology to extended field research in Polar regions and the tropics.

There is much more to the Department of Biological Sciences.  Please contact us for more information or visit our faculty webpages.

Department of Biological Sciences
University of Alaska Anchorage
3101 Science Circle, CPSB 101
Anchorage, AK 99508
Telephone: 907.786.4770 or 907.786.4780
Fax: 907.786.4607