Everything we do, touch, see, smell, and taste is related to biology: the study of life. The career options and places you can work to better understand life and all that it entails are distinct, dynamic, and ever evolving.
Below are just three (of so many!) interdisciplinary fields in Biology – from the magnified to the magnificent – and we’ll give you a taste of just a few places you may find yourself. Click on each area to see biology career opportunities, John Carroll course recommendations and recent happenings in the field:
Healthy ecosystems hang in the balance. A key to fighting a rapidly changing climate is understanding, restoring, and sustaining the incredible variety of life on Earth.
Career Spotlight: Conservation Scientist
Conservation scientists work to better understand how organisms respond to their environments and how they can best adapt, grow, and thrive in the future, despite extreme changes surrounding them. Their work includes project management, data analysis and interpretation, and communication with a variety of audiences. Conservation scientists may work with government agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, with conservation-mission non-profit organizations or for private companies seeking to adapt to a changing world.
Other Careers:
- Research Ecologist
- Hydrologic Technician
- Climate change specialist
- Environmental policy analyst
- Meteorologist
- Invasive Species Specialist
In the News
As our understanding of the world grows, so does our ability to create new medicines and therapies. With access and equity at the front of mind, drug discoveries blended with a public health perspective can lead to extraordinary outcomes on the quality of life of entire communities for generations.
Career Spotlight: Epidemiologist
Once a somewhat unknown biological specialty, epidemiology became a household-known career in the COVID-19 pandemic. Epidemiologists must be able to investigate patterns of specific diseases and make decisions surrounding appropriate public health responses, strategies and research. Working in hospitals, in government, or for private drug and healthcare companies, epidemiologists have specific focus areas of practice such as chronic disease, infectious disease, mental health, or drug development.
Other Careers:
- Physician
- Virologist
- Biotechnologist
- Genetic Counselor
- Public Health & Policy Analyst
- Environmental Health and Safety Technician
In the News
Biologists who study computational, synthetic, and quantitative biology fuse biology with principles of computer science, data science, mathematics, physics, engineering, and chemistry to solve life-impacting equations.
Career Spotlight: Bioinformatician
At the inception of this field, bioinformaticians logged many hours sequencing DNA, genomes, and other biological data, but a bioinformatician’s role has quite evolved into more interpretation and testing with advances in DNA sequence technology. It’s a great career for someone who is curious and seeks to find the answers to big questions in some of life’s smallest units. A bioinformatician must be able to understand data analytics and communicate across disciplines.
Other Careers:
- Biomedical Engineer
- Computational Biologist
- Statistical Analyst
- Genomics Researcher
- Phylogenetic Inference Analyst
- Biostatistician