A Message from Our Chair

Alfred P. "Hap" Wheeler

Department Chair and Professor

Welcome to the Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences at Clemson University.

As you peruse the pages of this website, I hope you are struck by our diversity. In fact we strive to maintain breadth in the disciplines represented by our faculty, in their research and outreach activities, and in our curricula.

The department emphasizes basic, discovery-based scholarship. However, many of our faculty are involved in research that will improve biomedical technology, create new materials or lead to better environmental conservation and management practices. Our faculty work at research sites and with collaborators not only at Clemson and in the Southeast, but across the nation and internationally as well.

We are student-oriented, striving for excellence in our advising, our teaching and our mentorship of graduate and undergraduate student research. We are leaders in advancing Clemson as a student-centered research university.

Biological Sciences has one of the largest enrollments of undergraduate majors of any department on campus. We offer BS degrees in Microbiology and Biological Sciences and a BA in Biological Sciences for those who seek a broader liberal arts experience. There are options under each, including special degree programs for those who wish to enter the rehabilitation sciences or pharmacy. In addition we are developing 5-year programs in which a student will receive both a BS and an MS. For example a combined BS in Biological Sciences and MS in Bioengineering is currently available.

In addition to our majors we advise students in pre-professional health, pre-rehabilitation sciences, pre-pharmacy and pre-physician assistant curricula. Overall we advise over 1000 students and teach over 3000 in our major and service classes each semester.

Our undergraduates have excellent credentials, with over 15% of our majors enrolled in the Calhoun Honors College, recipients of Clemson National Scholars are regularly in our department and the average SAT for 2007 entering freshman majors was approximately 1220. Over 40% of the Clemson acceptances to medical school have come from our majors in recent years.

We especially encourage our undergraduates to have an experience away from Clemson, whether it is through a study abroad program, as an intern or through an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates project. We have started a coop program for microbiology majors with industrial sponsors such as Procter & Gamble. 

The department also has one of the largest graduate programs in the college, with students in our MS and PhD programs in Biological Sciences and Microbiology and other students in the MS and PhD interdepartmental programs of Plant and Environmental Science and Environmental Toxicology. There is ample opportunity for financial support for our students, either as a research assistant or as one of our approximately 65 teaching assistants.

Our department encourages students to interact with other programs on campus. If you follow some of the links, you will see that there are many excellent biologists in other programs who strengthen our missions through their research, outreach and teaching interactions with us. Graduate students often interact with faculty or have major advisors in several other departments on campus, the SC Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unit and our faculty at the Oncology Research Institute of the Greenville Hospital System.

Students have access to a wide array of facilities. Our department manages the Campbell Museum of Natural History, the college tissue culture and imaging facilities, several aquatic animal facilities and greenhouses. We maintain a fleet of both vehicles and boats for field work.

We support education at all levels, including K-12. Our department is a principal participant in the SC LIFE program and the SC DNA Learning Center, two programs targeting public school education in science. The directors of both programs are faculty in our department.

Although we are a large, busy and diverse department, we pride ourselves in the personal attention we offer to those interested in our programs or in need of our services. In this spirit, if you have any questions about the department or its programs, please feel free to contact me at 864-656-1415 or wheeler@clemson.edu.