Biology Research
Research is an essential part of the Biology program at Harvey Mudd. Every student completes a year-long investigative senior project — either a senior research thesis or a sponsored team design project in one of the Clinic programs. While most Biology, Mathematical Biology, and Joint Chemistry/Biology majors choose to do a thesis, students in all of these majors have the option of being on a Clinic team instead. In addition to the senior project, many students do biology research during the summer. Finally, many students start working in research labs prior to their senior year.
Summer Research Program
We support research students each summer from a variety of external and internal funds. Funding sources can include the Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program, Harvey Mudd’s Hixon Center for Climate and the Environment, individual faculty research grants and three endowed departmental funds—the Emily H. Mudd, Munzer and William K. Purves summer research fellowships. Students sometimes continue their summer projects for their senior research.
Faculty Research Interests
All biology faculty maintain active research programs in diverse areas of biology. Here is a brief list of faculty research interests; for more information see individual faculty web pages.
- Prof. Steve Adolph: Physiological & evolutionary ecology; mathematical biology.
- Prof. Anna Ahn: Neural control and mechanics of locomotion.
- Prof. Eliot Bush: Molecular evolution and computational biology.
- Prof. Karl Haushalter: Chromatin structure and function.
- Prof. Jae Hur: Molecular biology of aging.
- Prof. Cathy McFadden: Marine population biology and molecular systematics.
- Prof. Danae Schulz: Gene regulation in parasites; immunology.
- Prof. Dan Stoebel: Function and evolution of bacterial regulatory networks.