Welcome to the St. Mary's College Biology Department!

The Department of Biology is a close-knit community of faculty, staff, and students bound by a shared love for the living world. Although we are a professionally active faculty, we know each of our students personally and are thereby able to help them realize their dreams and achieve their professional goals.

Biology students also get to know their professors and see us as real people, as working educators and scientists. Ours is a department where faculty doors are open and students and faculty often meet outside the classroom and in social settings. Within our program, the faculty teach all lectures and laboratories, and serve as academic advisors and research mentors.

Our curriculum is developmental in nature, designed to introduce and reinforce concepts and skills through a well integrated set of four core courses and associated laboratories. Advanced courses, many including student-designed research projects, round out a biology student’s education and frequently lead to the St. Mary’s Project.

The St. Mary’s Project is a student designed and executed capstone research experience, initiated and nurtured in collaboration with a faculty mentor. Our students experience and develop the intellectual and technical skills that will serve them well as biologists. As a consequence of their training in biology, graduates of our department tell us that they are exceptionally well-prepared for employment or post-graduate education.