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Education

Neuroscience teaching faculty

Neuroscience Teaching Faculty in The Division of Neural and Anatomical Education Pictured left to right: David R. Kornack, Ph.D., John A. Olschowka, Ph.D., John J. Foxe, Ph.D., Sarah McConnell, Ph.D., Sergiy Nadtochiy, Ph.D., Martha J. Gdowski, Ph.D., Linda Callahan, Ph.D. Not pictured: Diane Piekut, Ph.D.

Neuroscience Graduate Program

The Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Rochester recruits and matriculates the highest quality students from around the United States and from all parts of the world. They participate in a rigorous neuroscience curriculum, attend national and international meetings, and contribute to cutting edge research. Many of our students have published manuscripts in high profile international journals and present abstracts at a host of large and small scientific meetings. In addition, our students participate as members of the curriculum, admissions, and colloquium committees, and annually present their ongoing research to fellow students and to the neuroscience community as a whole.

Department of Neuroscience

The Department of Neuroscience is strongly committed to its major academic missions of research and education. Over 40 faculty (primary and joint) are actively engaged in neuroscience research across broad spectrums of interests. Extensive state-of-the-art instrumentation and methodologies are available for investigators and students, both within laboratories and across a set of departmental and institutional research cores.

Medical Scientist Training Program

The Medical Scientist Training Program incorporates the MD and PhD degrees into a cohesive curriculum, with the goal of endowing a select few with the clinical and basic science skills needed to not only understand disease, but translate that understanding into new therapies. At Rochester, this training is facilitated by outstanding faculty, talented and involved students, and a collaborative research environment. Our standard of excellence has been consistently recognized nationally and by the National Institutes of Health, with the 2018-2019 academic year marking our 60th year training physician-scientists and 45th consecutive year of MSTP funding.

Department of Biomedical Engineering Graduate Programs

Affiliated with both the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the School of Medicine and Dentistry, the University of Rochester graduate program in biomedical engineering emphasizes the application of engineering skills to biomedical problem-solving at both the master’s and doctoral level. 

Brain and Cognitive Sciences Graduate Program

Because students come to the brain and cognitive sciences (BCS) discipline with a wide range of backgrounds, the PhD program is designed to introduce students to parts of the field they might not previously have studied, and to prepare them for advanced work. This core curriculum covers a range of topics in perception, action, cognition, language, learning, and development, each examined from the perspectives of behavioral, computational, and neural science. According to the most recent National Research Council rankings, the graduate program in BCS at the University of Rochester is ranked as high as fourth nationally among 236 PhD programs in cognitive science and psychology (based on both the S-range and R-range measures). The BCS faculty ranked as high as third nationally for research according to the Faculty Research Activity measure. For more information see the Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs and the sortable list of rankings.

Brain and Cognitive Sciences Undergraduate Programs

The department offers majors in brain and cognitive sciences, and neuroscience.

The BCS major offers a rigorous but accessible program for students interested in the brain and how it enables us to perceive, think, and learn. Both the bachelor of arts (BA) and bachelor of science (BS) degrees are built around a common curriculum that integrates biological, behavioral, and computational approaches to the study of perception, language, thinking, learning, and the development of these capacities.

Students in our neuroscience program will receive a BS in biological sciences: neuroscience. This program provides students interested in biology with an opportunity to explore the molecular, cellular, and physiological bases of behavior.