Overview

The Graduate Group currently has more than 100 world class faculty members drawn from the schools of Medicine, Arts & Sciences, Engineering, Dentistry, and Veterinary Medicine, and the affiliated institutions of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia & the Wistar Institute, all of which are co-located on one compact campus.

The BBCB Graduate Group offers interdisciplinary training through a rigorous but flexible curriculum, exposure to cutting edge research and unmatched laboratory and research instrumentation facilities. The program comprises interrelated didactic and training elements: Lab rotations, formal courses (lecture based and seminar based), responsible conduct in research, scientific rigor and reproducibility, oral and written scientific communication skills and grant writing. These elements all revolve around immersive training in research by doing research. Modern scientific research is a highly collaborative activity, and students partake fully in the scientific community at Penn as well as being involved in a variety of outreach activities such as mentoring and science education at local schools, science policy, and student recruitment activities.

The BBCB Graduate Group strongly encourages applications from under-represented minorities and students with disabilities. We partner with the School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania at large to provide a welcoming and supportive environment for these students. With the help of the university and medical school we build community, provide networking, peer support and mentoring, host annual symposia, and engage in outreach to our community. With the help of Penn’s Office of Student Disabilities Services we provide extensive support for navigating Penn’s campus, providing accommodations, provide physical resources at the Weingarten Center, and host an annual disability symposium, amongst other initiatives.

Graduates from our program entered a very wide range of career tracks following their time at Penn, including academic, government and industrial research, higher education, science communication, science policy, biotech and entrepreneur startups, and software development. We’re proud to say that our placement rate 5 years post-graduation is above 95%!