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| Biosciences |
The Home Program
Stanford Biomedical
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The goal of the Home Program is to enable each graduate student to carry out dissertation research and training with any faculty member in the Biosciences while at the same time to take part in the activities offered by a smaller, cohesive group of faculty and students within each Home Program. To avoid the anonymity that large global admissions programs can create, each graduate student is immediately welcomed into a Home Program upon enrollment. Home Programs also allow graduate students to affiliate with a broad group of faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and students with common scientific interests and intellectual approaches. At the same time, students’ interests are often still evolving, and it is common that a particular student may be interested in the research of faculty across a range of disciplines and departments. Indeed, it is often the experiences, during the first year, from formal and informal meetings with faculty and from interactions with students across many disciplines, that inspire a student to embark upon new directions in research. As described below, Graduate Studies in the Biosciences at Stanford forms an initial bond with a chosen Home Program while allowing each student free and unencumbered access to thesis research in any of 317 laboratories.
During the first year at Stanford, Biosciences graduate students carry out research in two or three laboratories so that they may make informed choices for their dissertation research. These rotations take full advantage of the opportunities at Stanford: students may work in any Biosciences laboratory, subject only to space constraints and consent of the faculty member. The student’s first rotation during fall quarter is in one of the laboratories of the Home Program. During this time, students settle into graduate life, take course work (based on their interests and background), and commence a brief research project. In addition, they attend research presentations by faculty within their own programs, as well as within other Home Programs. Based on this participation, input from one’s Home Program advisor and discussions with current students, the student meets with faculty of interest to arrange the next laboratory rotation. This rotation and any subsequent rotations may be with any faculty member listed in this brochure, subject only to the usual constraints of space and mutual interest of the student and faculty member. To date, more than half of our first-year students have taken one or more rotations with faculty outside their respective Home Program. This flexible system for rotation selection not only provides a student access to every laboratory for potential dissertation research, but also broadens a student’s knowledge of the many ongoing projects and resources available at Stanford. Indeed, it is common to obtain help from or even join in a collaboration with a former rotation laboratory in later years.
Rotations are also critical to graduate training because they expose each student to a range of possible dissertation topics. The student’s choice of the dissertation laboratory can be made at the end of the second quarter (April 1st) or thereafter. This flexibility allows each student to make an opportune choice. Nevertheless, students are strongly encouraged to choose a laboratory by the end of the third quarter in order to begin their thesis research in a timely manner.
Selecting a dissertation laboratory and topic is a joint decision between the student and the relevant faculty member. Students may transfer from one program to another if they choose a thesis laboratory outside their initial Home Program.
We believe that this flexible system offers a wide range of choices, while also ensuring that students are integrated as full members of the intellectual community in the Biosciences immediately upon entering the University. All students interact closely with both faculty and other students in their Home Program. Indeed, during the first year, Home Program faculty continue to advise students even when they rotate through other laboratories within the Biosciences.
The remainder of this brochure presents brief descriptions of the participating Ph.D. -granting programs, the faculty, and their research. You will see from the lists of research interests that Stanford’s Bioscience programs have both breadth and depth. The increasingly clear interrelationships among areas of biology previously viewed as distinct make it all the more important for students to do research in an interactive and cooperative research environment. Cross-disciplinary training is a clear strength of the Biosciences programs at Stanford. The traditional freedom of inquiry, matched with freedom of movement among diverse academic fields, provides ample opportunities for students to receive the best possible graduate education.
Biosciences at Stanford and Beyond
Although the Home Program serves as the base for each first-year student, there are constant opportunities for scientific interactions with other groups in many contexts. First-year students are always welcome at the many departmental and program journal clubs and seminar series held on a regular basis at the medical school and on the main campus. Special campus symposia are also conducted on a regular basis. The science departments at Stanford are all located close to one another, fostering interactions and collaborations, not just between groups formally in the biosciences, but also extending to chemistry, physics, psychology, computer sciences, and chemical, material, and civil engineering. Beyond the campus, the San Francisco Bay Area has a broad and deep range of biomedical and biological knowledge and expertise. The rich scientific environment fosters regular meetings of special interest groups that include scientists from Stanford as well as from UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz along with the major biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in the Silicon Valley.
