Biological and Environmental Sciences

Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems

• Overview
• Curriculum
• Affiliated Faculty
• Research

Curriculum

This graduate specialization group takes a systems-based, interdisciplinary approach to the biological and environmental sciences as applied to agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, nutrition, and food safety. Our diverse group of faculty, with contributors from both the natural and social sciences, uses a broad array of approaches to help achieve the economically and ecologically sustainable production, management, consumption, and utilization of plants and animals for the development of healthy communities. Areas of research include animal science (reproduction, nutrition, management, and health), aquaculture (ecology, physiology, nutrition, and aquatic pathology), ecological anthropology, ethnobiology/ethnoecology, horticulture (fruit and vegetable production, environmental horticulture, and turfgrass management), entomology and biocontrol of invasive species, landscape design, nutrition and food safety, resource economics and policy, and soil science.

Core courses 

All students are strongly recommended to take the following 4 credits of coursework and 4 credits of seminar (the student will consult with their PhD committee to determine the additional 10+ credits of coursework – see table on next page for details):

AVS/NFS 504 Food Systems, Sustainability and Health (3 credits, Fall Semester of first year): Interdisciplinary discussion on food systems and sustainability.

BES 500 (formerly BIO 500) Scientific Ethics (1 Credit, Fall Semester of first year): This course focuses on the ethics of scientific research. Students are encouraged to also consider taking the companion course (BES 501, Advanced Scientific Communication, 2 cr).

BES 600 Graduate Seminar in Biological & Environmental Sciences (1 credit, taken twice; spring semester only). Graduate students provide one talk on their proposed research in the early phase of their careers and one talk on their research results in a later phase. This seminar is designed to create an active student body knowledgeable about their peer’s research, and foster collegiality among the student body and mentoring of younger grads by senior grads. Students must take this twice for credit (i.e. two presentations are required), but students are required to attend the seminar each semester when in residence at URI.

BES 581, 582 Biological and Environmental Sciences Colloquium, (1 credit, must be taken twice). Invited talks on selected research topics in selected areas related to biological and environmental sciences. Faculty and graduate students within BES participate and take turns hosting the seminar.

Summary of proposed credit structure: All students are expected to take at least 4 credits of core courses; Grad seminar 2 credits, BES seminar 2 credits; for a total of 8 credits. For MSc and PhD students this leaves 10+ credits for other courses.

*MSc students are required to take 6-9 research credits; the remaining credits can be taken as Special Problems course(s) or additional coursework. Note that current URI Graduate School policy (Section 7.44.1 of Graduate Manual) states that MSc students can take a maximum of 9 thesis research (599) credits, whereas for PhD students there is no maximum number of the thesis research (699) credits.

**Coursework for PhD students is decided in close consultation with the student’s PhD committee and with careful consideration of past coursework completed and the student’s career goals. PhD students with a MSc degree can transfer 30 credits from their MSc program and thus must complete at least 42 credits at URI. PhD students without a MSc degree may be allowed to transfer up to 20% of credits (e.g., 15 credits for a 72 credit program) from another institution but restrictions apply (see Section 7.50-54 of Graduate Manual for details). The required 18 course credits is pertinent to all BES PhD students and can be satisfied by transfer course credits with approval of the student’s PhD committee.

BES Main