Graduate Program Information

As previously mentioned, the Plant Pathology Department offers many different research opportunities and our graduate programs are individually designed with your goals in mind. Areas of research at both the M.S. and Ph.D. levels include: molecular plant pathology, fungal molecular genetics, phytobacteriology, nematology, virology, epidemiology, biocontrol, disease resistance and plant diseases. There are also opportunities for inter-disciplinary programs in biotechnology, plant breeding, microclimatology, plant stress, pest management, and international agriculture. For a more complete description of the research activity of the department, see Areas of Research. We are a medium-sized department of 16 faculty who are highly interactive and compatible. Our graduates are competitive in the scientific arena and are sought for positions in academe, government, and the private sector. The department has state of the art facilities and instrumentation to support research interests ranging from the most applied to the most basic. Laboratory based research is conducted in Plant Sciences Hall with ancillary greenhouses, growth chambers and small plots available, as needed. Field research problems may be carried out with faculty in Lincoln or the Research and Extension Centers at North Platte and Scottsbluff.

Our graduate programs in the Department of Plant Pathology are part of the School of Biological Sciences and our graduate degrees are granted through this School. We also offer graduate programs in partnership with the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture and through the Master of Agriculture program.

Application forms for admission to the department will be sent upon request, or application for graduate studies may be made on-line at the following address: http://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/ . If you prefer not to apply on-line, please send a request for application documents to be mailed to you and include your complete mailing address. Send requests to :

Amit Mitra
Professor
University of Nebraska
Department of Plant Pathology
406M PS
Lincoln, NE 68583-0722

Students may apply for entry into the graduate program at any time during the year. Decisions regarding program admission are made monthly, as application files are completed; however decisions regarding Departmental Graduate Research Assistantships are made twice annually, in April and November for funding beginning July 1 and January 1, respectively. In order to fairly consider all applicants for assistantships, 1 March and 1 October have been established as deadline dates. If your file is not complete by these dates it will be held and not be considered for a Departmental Graduate Research Assistant until the next funding period.

All students are required to take the Graduate Record Exam (aptitude and advanced portion, usually biology) at their own expense before being accepted by the department. In addition, transcripts of Colleges/Universities attended, reference letters and a statement, not exceeding one type written page, of your long-term professional goals will be needed. A TOEFL exam score for students whose native language is not English is also required (550 minimum).

A few State funded Departmental Graduate Research Assistantships are available to students admitted in our department. These assistantships are granted separate from admission to the graduate program and area by the Department Head through individual faculty on a competitive basis. Many individual faculty have grant programs which also provide research assistantships and are awarded by the individual faculty investigator. Applicants may inquire directly to individual faculty about the availability of these funds. Currently our Graduate Research Assistantship stipends are $19,500 a year. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln provides individual health insurance coverage for eligible graduate assistantships. In addition, students on assistantships are granted a tuition remission for 12 credit hours per semester.

If you are particularly interested in working with a specific faculty member you may wish to contact him/her directly, or you may be contacted by individual faculty who are interested in having you as a graduate student. The establishment of this dialogue is appropriate and encouraged.

We are proud of our graduate program and hope the foregoing comments concerning our department and the University will help you reach a decision to apply to the University of Nebraska for graduate work.