An honors degree in marine biology requires laboratory and/or field work which is supervised by a faculty member. If you are interested in undertaking a marine biology honors project, you should contact the OIMB faculty member with whom you wish to work. To qualify for the marine biology degree with Honors, students must meet the following requirements.

1. Completion of all the requirements for the major in marine biology.
2. A minimum cumulative GPA of 3.3 for all upper-division biology courses required for the major.
3. All biology courses used to satisfy the marine biology degree requirements must be taken for letter grades.
4. Registration for the honors program before research begins. (This requires approval of the honors thesis topic by the OIMB faculty sponsor and the selection of a second faculty member of your thesis approval committee. This second member should be one who can provide substantive advice and be an OIMB faculty or another UO faculty with professional interests relevant to the thesis topic – signatures required below).
5. A minimum of 4 credits of research over at least three terms. One of these terms can be accomplished on the main UO campus while the thesis is being written, but may require periodic visits to OIMB.
6. Completion of a thesis, based on laboratory and/or field research that is approved by the OIMB faculty advisor and the second thesis committee member. These two pages should be included at the front of the thesis: a title page and the thesis defense committee approval. A final copy of the thesis is to be submitted to the OIMB library.
7. A public defense of the thesis at OIMB.

If a student is on main campus while enrolled in the marine biology honors program, they should consider enrolling in the BI 403 Honors Thesis course. Contact the Biology & General Science Advising Center for information and times of this course.

For further inquiries related to the honors degree in marine biology please contact Maya Watts or the marine biology peer advisor.