Welcome to the web page for the Integrative Microbiology and Biochemistry graduate program in the University of Montana’s Division of Biological Sciences. Students pursuing a graduate degree will earn Doctoral degree in Integrative Microbiology and Biochemistry with an emphasis in Cellular and Developmental Biology, Microbial Evolution and Ecology, Microbiology and Immunology, and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. Students in the Microbiology emphasis may also add the Microbial Ecology option to their degree.

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 Facilities, including the Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience, the Center for Environmental Health Sciences, and the Center for Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics.

The IMB graduate program also is involved with two prestigious partnership programs to which students can apply concurrently. 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 Health 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 NIH 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.