OEB is all about life. The department's faculty share a common interest in understanding the structure, function, and variation of biological systems both now and in the past. To capture this range of interest in, and approaches to, biological problems, we have called the OEB's undergraduate concentration Integrative Biology.

We ask questions about life and the natural world. What kinds of organisms are there and how are they related? How is an organism's functional design and behavior related to its environment? What are the genetic and morphological mechanisms underlying an organism's development? How is evolution influenced by development?