The F.A.E. Graduate Program provides individualized attention for each student. All students are required to engage in independent research, and a laboratory research rotation under faculty guidance begins soon after their arrival. Research may involve our large collection of fossil vertebrates, our broad array of casts of recent and fossil mammal dentitions, or various samples of human historic and archaeological material. Research is further facilitated by access to the extensive collections of recent and fossil vertebrates at the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution), Washington, D.C., which is only an hour away. The F.A.E. program also offers opportunities for field work (see individual faculty pages), including research on the ecology of living primates and other mammals in Costa Rica and on Eocene vertebrate faunas in Wyoming.

Students are required to take courses in human anatomy and embryology, organ histology, evolutionary biology, biomechanics, mammalian and primate evolution, and statistics, while other course work is arranged to suit the requirements and interests of the individual. In addition, students must pass a foreign language exam and a comprehensive oral examination by the end of the second year. After completing the human anatomy course, each student also gains valuable experience as a teaching assistant for medical and undergraduate human anatomy courses. (Read the Johns Hopkins Magazine article "Four Students and a Cadaver.")

As a result of the interdisciplinary training of the F.A.E. Graduate Program, our graduates are well equipped to face the challenge of today's academic job market. See the links below for futher information about the program.