Biological Sciences
A scientific foundation for a world of opportunities.
Studying Biology prepares you to excel as a broadly trained scientist, with coursework in scientific foundations, literature, laboratory, and experimental design.
Take advantage of your undergraduate research opportunities.
Check out our Faculty page to view a professor’s area of expertise. Visit and talk with them as early in your career as possible. Although most undergraduate research is done in the junior and senior years, some students begin as early as their first year.
Work Alongside Faculty
Butler Summer Institute
The Butler Summer Institute (BSI) is the University’s preeminent undergraduate research program that allows you to pursue a significant research question, contribute to a scholarly conversation, or produce creative work while being mentored by a faculty member and supported by a peer community comprised of equally enthusiastic student researchers and artists.
Tropics Research
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
The STRI in Panama is dedicated to understanding tropical biodiversity. Through Butler-STRI partnership, students serve as paid interns on research projects conducted by STRI scientists. Butler Biology faculty teach an intensive field-based course in Panama involving new research initiatives.
Real-World Experience
Internships
Many Indianapolis businesses and organizations seek out our students as interns in supervised work/research experiences. Butler Biology majors have interned with such groups as the Marion County Coroner’s Office, Central Indiana Land Trust, U.S. Department of Energy, and the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Friesner Herbarium
With nearly 100,000 dried, pressed, and preserved plant specimens, the Friesner Herbarium is a reference library on historical distribution, habitats, and timing of flowering and fruit production.