Natural Sciences

The department covers all major fields in astrophysics — from planets to black holes, stars, galaxies, quasars, dark matter, dark energy, and the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang to today — and plasma physics. The relatively small size of the department provides an informal, flexible and friendly setting for students. Under the department’s aegis, an extensive program of graduate research is also conducted at the renowned Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

The Department of Chemistry offers undergraduates a flexible program suitable for attending graduate or medical school, as well as for those intending to pursue a career in secondary school teaching. A chemistry concentration is appropriate for anyone who desires a broad background of undergraduate training in science.

The graduate program is a vital, expanding hub of scientific inquiry with deep historic roots and a ready grasp on the future. Housed in the world-class Frick Chemistry Laboratory, faculty and students work at the frontiers of science where the lines between chemistry and other disciplines merge.

The undergraduate program emphasizes study from an evolutionary perspective, combining theory and empiricism and linking areas that are often treated as separate disciplines. Students with an interest in whole-organism and large-scale processes — evolution, physiology, disease, behavior, neuroscience, ecology, ecosystem biology, conservation and climate change — will find a home in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Areas of strength in the graduate program include evolutionary ecology, behavioral ecology, theoretical ecology, population, community and ecosystem ecology, ecological and evolutionary genetics, molecular evolution, epidemiology of infectious diseases, and conservation biology. Graduate students also have excellent opportunities for combining several areas for innovative interdisciplinary work.

The intellectual excitement of modern geosciences is fueled by our exploration of the dynamic forces and delicate balances that mold our planet and have rendered it conducive to life for much of its history. The diversity of processes that characterize the Earth as a whole requires geosciences to be an extraordinarily interdisciplinary field with direct connections to mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science.

The graduate program encompasses a rich diversity of scientific expertise and initiatives, ranging from the measurement and modeling of global climatic change to high-pressure mineral physics, and from seismic tomographic imaging of the mantle to biogeochemistry and isotope geochemistry of the Earth and oceans.

The undergraduate program offers the flexibility to accommodate students with a range of interests, allowing them to take a considerable course load outside the department. Students preparing for graduate school can choose from a variety of advanced-level courses.

Graduate study is strongly focused on research, with equal emphasis on theoretical and experimental studies. The department has strong and growing groups in experimental condensed matter physics and biophysics, in addition to traditional strengths in theoretical and experimental elementary particle physics, theoretical and experimental gravity and cosmology, experimental nuclear and atomic physics, mathematical physics, and theoretical condensed matter physics.

The undergraduate program provides a rigorous understanding of human behavior and mental processes through foundational and advanced courses on sensation, perception, movement, language, reasoning, decision-making, social interaction and computational models of the brain. The psychology concentration also provides a grounding in neuroscience, since mental processes and behavior arise from the brain.

The graduate program emphasizes preparation for research and teaching in psychology, with specialization in cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, language, learning and memory, perception and cognition, the psychology of inequality, social neuroscience, social psychology, and systems neuroscience.