American University’s College of Arts and Sciences announced in September 2024 a new PhD in Biomedical and Environmental Health Sciences to start classes in August 2025.
CASs description of the new PhD program highlights wanting to create leaders and problem solvers. Through unique offerings such as curated classes, policy seminars, faculty mentorships, rotating labs and the dissertation project, graduates will leave the program skilled in bridging the gaps between science, health, research and legislation.
“Trying to get [the program] off the ground… I find it exciting. We’re actually recruiting right now and accepting applications for next year,” said Vikki Connaughton, the program director and a biology professor at the University, in an interview with The Eagle.
Students in the Biomedical and Environmental Health Sciences PhD program will study and research interdisciplinary subjects such as biology, chemistry, environmental science, scientific research, public health and environmental health through the lens of public policy. Some issues students may explore include climate change, cancer, disease, sustainability and access to clean water.
“[Other] exclusively ‘hard science’ PhD programs, which are great, might not necessarily have that added approach or that added perspective of policy,” Connaughton said.
In addition to marrying science with policy, the new program prioritizes students finding compatible faculty mentors in the various science departments to help guide them through their dissertation experience.
Students can contact potential faculty mentors before they enter the program, unlike other PhD programs. Students can also include which faculty mentor they’d like to start their lab rotation process in the application’s personal statement. Allowing graduate students to contact the various faculty members and create a working relationship with them at the beginning of the lab rotation process allows them to find an ideal mentor to conduct their dissertation with, according to Connaughton.
“We have something unique to AU… and that’s there’s a lab rotation. In other institutions, [students] would come in [to their PhD program] and not know the faculty members they’re going to be working with directly,” Connaughton said.
Connaughton said that after the initial lab rotation with their preferred faculty mentor, students would continue exploring the various science departments. Each lab rotation with a new faculty member will last about a month.
When asked what students could do with the new doctorate in Biomedical and Environmental Health Sciences, Connaughton said, “I think that certainly some of them could go the academia route and be a teacher at a place like AU, where you have the science but you also have the very strong policy. I think graduates could also do things like become science advisors.”
For aspiring applicants, the full description, class requirement list and admissions process for AU’s new PhD in Biomedical and Environmental Health Sciences can be found here.
“Looking at something like climate change… informing policymakers and lawmakers… to me that puts the policy part in front of the science as a lens. It’s how you’re using the information you have and what you know. In one [situation] you’re putting the lens of policy in front of science, and in one you’re just using the science that you know. In an ideal situation, our students could do either one,” Connaughton said.
This article was edited by Sydney Hemmer, Marina Zaczkiewicz and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Emma Brown and Ariana Kavoossi.
