Interdisciplinary Programs

The Graduate School promotes and supports  interdisciplinary initiatives and programs.  The following degree programs combine faculty members from various  programs, departments, and colleges, and are administered by the Graduate School:

• M.S. in Biology Teaching
  This program is designed to provide modern graduate training, including an exposure to research, for practicing biology teachers at K-12 levels and community colleges, as well as for environmental educators.

• Health Services Administration, MHA.
  This program provides the educational foundation for high-level careers in health services management, delivery, and policy.

• Individual Ph.D. Program, Ph.D. 
  This program is for exceptionally able students in high academic standing whose objectives for study are so truly interdisciplinary that they cannot be met within one of the University units authorized to grant the Ph.D. degree. The Program is intended for dissertation topics which require supervision from two or more of the programs through which the University offers the Ph.D. degree.

• Molecular and Cellular Biology Program of the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Ph.D.
  The University of Washington (UW) and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC), collaborate to offer a program of graduate studies leading to a Ph.D. degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology.

• Museology, MA
  The Museology Program provides education and skills for curatorial and other professional work in museums, with training that includes museum history, philosophy, law and ethics, facility and operational design, conservation, collections management, administration, and interpretive program work. 

• Near and Middle Eastern Studies, PhD. 
  The  Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Near and Middle Eastern Studies is designed for students with masters degrees who wish to pursue research with a comparative perspective in the following fields: Near Eastern languages and literature (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian [or Dari or Tajik]); Turkish and Central Asian Turkic languages; Near Eastern linguistics; Islamic topics, namely Islamic law, history, institutions, theology, and mysticism; Comparative religion (Judaism, Christianity and Islam); Interdisciplinary investigations of modern topics using the social sciences.

• Neurobiology & Behavior, Ph.D. 
  This program combines neuroscience research in many departments in both the School of Medicine and the College of Arts and Sciences to afford the opportunity for researchers to be trained thoroughly across a wide range of neuroscience study, from molecule to mind.

• Nutritional Sciences,  MS, Ph.D., MPH
  The faculty of this interdisciplinary graduate program is drawn from Schools of Public Health and Community Medicine, Medicine, Nursing, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.  Principal areas of study are nutritional biochemistry, diet-disease relationships, community nutrition, and public health nutrition policy and practice.

• Pathobiology, MS, Ph.D.
  This program promotes public health through biomedical research, training and service in infectious and noninfectious diseases of importance to human populations and reflects the truly interdisciplinary nature of the faculty and its laboratory-based research as it interfaces with global health.
   
• Public Health Genetics, Ph.D.
  Public Health Genetics is the application of advances in human genetics and molecular biotechnology to improve public health and prevent disease. The Ph.D. in Public Health Genetics is a unique, multidisciplinary degree within the UW Graduate School, administered by the Institute for Public Health Genetics (IPHG) and guided by the Interdisciplinary Group in Public Health Genetics. Its overall goal is to train individual scholars for careers in academic institutions, health care delivery systems, public health departments, government agencies and the private sector. The multidisciplinary nature of this program prepares graduates to address scientific and policy questions from multiple perspectives.
   

• Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management (QERM), MS, Ph.D.
  QERM provides a special opportunity for students to study the application of statistical, mathematical, and decision sciences to a broad array of terrestrial and marine ecology, natural resource management, and biometrical and mathematical biology problems.

• Urban Design and Planning, Ph.D.  
  This program brings together faculty from disciplines ranging from Architecture to Sociology to focus on the interdisciplinary study of urban problems and interventions.  covering scales from neighborhoods to metropolitan areas, the program addresses interrelationships between the physical environment, the built environment, and the social, economic, and political institutions and processes that shape urban areas. 

• Biomolecular Structure & Design Program
  BMSD scientists explore the frontiers and interactions between structural, computational and chemical biology. The primary focus of members of the program involves the use and determination of atomic-level structures of biologically important macromolecules, i.e. proteins, RNA and DNA. The area of research encompassed by Biomolecular Structure & Design is inherently interdisciplinary in nature: techniques used in this area are derived from chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, and molecular biology. The program is designed to facilitate cross-training among disciplines with the aim of preparing young scientists to enter this exciting and growing field of research, which is relevant for vaccine development, drug design, protein structure prediction, as well as for understanding the fundamentals of structure - function relationships in biomacromolecules.

Degree Program Offerings