Slider photo credits: Adam Haberski (Slide 1), JR Ancheta (Slides 2, 3,& 5), Peter Mather (Slide 4)

 

FIND US

in the Classroom

Teaching

Margaret Murie Life Science Building LobbyThe Biology and Wildlife Department is located in the Margaret Murie Building with state-of-the art classrooms and laboratories where students engage in inquiry-based learning and are challenged to pursue their own research passion in a capstone experience. 

We have online courses too!

in the Field

Research

Field work with snowshoe haresUAF is America’s Arctic University. Students and faculty in the Biology and Wildlife Department are at the forefront of documenting and understanding the changing Arctic – its people, plants, animals, and landscape.  

in the Community

Outreach

Handing out hand lenses in ShishmarefTeaching and research in the Biology and Wildlife Department are intertwined and embedded within the Alaskan communities where we work. Faculty and students endeavor to improve the lives of Alaskans – from developing diet interventions to minimize chronic disease, to understanding how climate change is impacting subsistence resources.

WHERE RESEARCH HAPPENS

UAF is Alaska’s premier research university and the only PhD-granting institution in the state.  Research in the Department of Biology and Wildlife spans the breadth of the biological sciences, from molecular biology to ecosystem science.  Investigating emerging viral pathogens, microbes that detoxify environmental contaminants, the molecular genetics of obesity and diabetes, impacts of climate change on polar organisms and ecosystems, and more, our faculty work alongside graduate, undergraduate and high school students to address key issues of vital interest to Alaska and beyond.

 

 
Announcements
  • Upcoming Listening Session for Undergraduate Majors in Biology and Wildlife

    March 19, 2024

    Biology and Wildlife undergraduate majors are invited to a Listening Session Tues March 19, 1 - 1:50pm. This year's listening session will be on Zoom to encourage participation by online, as well as local, students. Please attend if you would like to share your suggestions, problems, and questions with the department chair and undergraduate advisor to the department.

    Zoom link to Listening Session

  • New Climate and Environment Change B.S. degree launched

    January 5, 2024

    A new interdisciplinary degree program called Climate and Environmental Change has launched and is running out of the Biology and Wildlife Department. To read more, check out the website!

  • Exciting changes to the Biological Sciences Bachelor of Arts degree

    April 12, 2022

    Are you interested in the intersection of science and societal issues?

    The updated Biological Sciences B.A. degree program (catalog year 2022-23) is an interdisciplinary degree that invites students to combine coursework in biology with a minor and other subjects of interest in the social sciences or humanities. 

    New Capstone: BIOL F410 Integrative Capstone in Biological Sciences (3 credits, starts spring 2023). Learn and apply concepts in interdisciplinary integration across the sciences, arts, humanities, and social sciences. Then, combine the biological sciences with another discipline (e.g. your minor) in a creative independent project that fulfills the B.A. capstone requirement. 

    BIOL F410 will be taught in spring 2024! Students under older catalog years may petition it for capstone credit.

    Also new: an optional concentration in Environmental Change. Take the new interdisciplinary Environmental Change minor, including courses like Global Change Biology, to complete this concentration.

 
Murie Building
Sunrise reflected in the Margaret Murie Life Science Building. Photo credit: Diane Wagner 2014