Graduate - IMB Program

Welcome to the web page for the Integrative Microbiology and Biochemistry graduate program in the University of Montana’s Division of Biological Sciences. Graduate studies in the Division of Biological Sciences are divided into two separate programs, Integrative Microbiology and Biochemistry (IMB) and Organismal Biology and Ecology (OBE). Admission and graduate regulations are unique to each program. Students pursuing a graduate degree will earn Master’s or Doctoral degree in Integrative Microbiology and Biochemistry with an emphasis in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, or Microbiology. Students may also obtain a degree in the Microbial Ecology option within the Microbiology emphasis. 

Students admitted to the IMB graduate program will have the opportunity to perform laboratory rotations with faculty members in the graduate program to assist in identifying a thesis laboratory. There is a wide array of faculty research interests within the IMB graduate group.  Faculty research specialties include biochemistry, cell biology, environmental microbiology, immunology, medical microbiology, microbial ecology, microbial genetics and evolution, microbial pathogenesis, molecular biology, parasitology, structural biology, and virology. Several of the IMB faculty are also members of one or more research centers, including the Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience, the Center for Environmental Health Sciences, and the Center for Biomolecular and Structural Dynamics.

The IMB graduate program also is involved with two prestigious partnership programs to which students can directly apply and gain admittance.  The Montana Ecology of Infectious Disease program (M-EID) is a cross-disciplinary program that involves the Departments of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Communication Studies along with the School of Forestry and the Institute of Medicine and Humanities at St. Patrick Hospital and Heath Sciences Center in Missoula. M-EID is funded by a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship grant.  IMB faculty and students are also involved in a Graduate Partnership Program (GPP) with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Rocky Mountain Laboratories, part of the National Institutes of Health located 45 miles south of Missoula  in Hamilton, Montana.

Admission to the IMB graduate program to pursue an M.S. or Ph.D. is competitive and students are customarily admitted and supported during their first year on teaching assistantships. IMB PhD students are guaranteed four years of stipend support, pending satisfactory progress, from teaching assistantships.  However, student stipend and tuition costs are typically provided by the thesis mentor’s laboratory on a research assistantship after the first year. Online admission policies and admission forms are available. 

Regulations and requirements for current IMB students can be found here.