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Information for
Graduate Students

There are many opportunities for graduate research with faculty in the Interdisciplinary Plant Group. Graduate student researchers constitute an active core of about 100 people in the IPG. They work on a wide range of problems from basic research in model systems to applied problems in crop species. MU offers exceptional facilities for plant research featuring excellent plant growth facilities, greenhouses, seed storage areas, and genetic resources as well as state of the art labs. In addition to the Core Research Facilities, other notable facilities include a campuswide Plant Transformation Core Facility and maize and Soybean Genomics Projects.

Prospective students should apply to enter graduate school and obtain a research assistantship through any of the participating departments or programs:

Although not a degree-granting program, the IPG does provide a Core Curriculum for incoming graduate students. The courses that comprise the IPG Core Curriculum are designed and taught by IPG faculty.

The goal of the first-year of courses is to provide students with an introductory study of plant biology, from the molecular and cellular levels to the whole plant and ecological levels. In the spring of the first year and in the second year, advanced courses are provided in more specialty areas, but interdisciplinary learning is still encouraged.

The goal of the curriculum is to provide graduate students, no matter their home department, with a basic and interdisciplinary understanding of plant biology. Students are encouraged to see interconnections between fields and to think broadly before they become embedded in their specific discipline. It is also designed to provide graduate students with a collegial and interdisciplinary support network of others studying plant biology.

Details of the core curriculum can be found at https://ipg.missouri.edu/IPGCoreCurriculumWeb.pdf.

IPG faculty also teach a wide variety of advanced graduate courses that let students become more familiar with specialized topics in plant biology. These courses can be found on departmental websites. For example, the Division of Plant Sciences (DPS) plant stress emphasis area maintains a site with courses offered by DPS and other departments that may be of interest to IPG students at https://plantsciencesweb.missouri.edu/graduate/program_areas/psb_phd.cfm.

 

 

 

 

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