College of Agriculture and Natural Resources

The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (http://canr.udel.edu/) offers graduate education through all of its academic departments: Animal and Food Sciences, Entomology and Wildlife Ecology, Applied Economics and Statistics, and Plant and Soil Sciences. Each department offers programs leading to both thesis-based and non-thesis Master of Science (MS) degrees as well as a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree. The College also participates in three interdisciplinary graduate programs offering both MS and PhD degrees: Water Science & Policy, Bioinformatics & Data Science, and Microbiology. The College seeks highly qualified students interested in degrees that will lead to careers in academia, industry, government, and not-for-profit organizations. Faculty members in all departments actively mentor graduate students, and many are involved in multidisciplinary research. Students in thesis-based programs conduct graduate research projects under the guidance of a faculty mentor. Students are encouraged to publish their research and to participate regularly in local, regional, and national professional meetings.

The Department of Animal and Food Sciences offers course-based Master of Science (MS) programs in Animal Health, Applied Animal Science, and Food Technology, thesis-based MS programs in Animal Science and Food Science, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree (PhD) in Animal and Food Sciences. In the Animal Science program, a student may seek a degree with a research focus in animal physiology, nutrition, gut microbiology and immunobiology, genetics and genomics, avian diseases, molecular biology, immunology and virology, host-pathogen interactions, as well as poultry environmental management. In the Food Science program, a student may seek a degree with a research focus in bacteriology, virology, parasitology, or toxicology, as well as in food processing and packaging, sensory science, and food product development.

The Department of Applied Economics and Statistics conducts impactful and timely research. On the Applied Economics side, researchers focus on many real-world issues at the intersection of society, natural resources, the environment, and food production and consumption. An overarching theme for the department is the use of behavioral and experimental approaches to address these issues. On the Statistics side, the research topics cover statistical theory and learning across various fields, including high-dimensional data analysis, Bayesian modeling, longitudinal data, genomic data, social networks, econometrics, and large language models, among others. Graduate degrees offered include an MS in Agricultural and Resource Economics, an MS in Statistics, an online MS in Applied Statistics, and a PhD in Statistics Data Science.

The Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology has four graduate degrees: the MS in Entomology, the MS in Insect and Wildlife Environmental Education, the MS in Wildlife Ecology, and the PhD in Entomology and Wildlife Ecology. These degree programs offer graduate students opportunities to engage in both applied and basic research dealing with insects, birds, mammals, and other wildlife. Areas of emphasis include ecology, human-wildlife interactions, plant-insect interactions, biological control, conservation biology, and wildlife ecology in a human dominated landscape.

The Department of Plant and Soil Sciences offers graduate students both MS and PhD degrees in Plant and Soil Sciences that address basic and applied areas of research.  The Plant Science concentration focuses on biology, food security research including genetics and genomics, molecular, cell and developmental biology, synthetic biology, plant-microbe interactions, breeding, phenomics, physiology, ecology, and horticulture. The Soil Science concentration focuses on understanding the Earth’s critical zone including soil chemistry, biochemistry, biogeochemical processes, microbiology, physics, and land conservation and management. Additional graduate research areas include urban ecology and forestry, landscape design, and plant collections management. 

The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources has two campuses with modern research laboratories, state-of-the-art equipment, and extensive field research sites that support a wide range of applied and basic graduate studies. Located on the Newark Campus are Worrilow Hall (newly renovated in 2021), Townsend Hall, the Charles C. Allen, Jr. Laboratory, the Fischer Greenhouse Laboratory, the Delaware Biotechnology Institute (newly renovated in 2020), a modern research farm with 250 acres of cropland, a 35-acre woodlot for ecological studies, and extensive facilities for animal science research. The Elbert V. and Ann Carvel Center, located at the College’s southern Delaware campus in Georgetown, DE has more than 300 acres of land used for studies on the applied aspects of crop production and sophisticated facilities that support a wide range of research in poultry science. For more information on the College’s research infrastructure, please see https://www.udel.edu/academics/colleges/canr/about/facilities-labs/.

Departments and Programs