Division of Science
Driven by curiosity
The FAS Science division spans the biological and physical sciences. FAS scientists engage in observation of our world and the universe beyond it, laboratory-based experimentation, computational analysis, and the pursuit of questions driven by curiosity about how the world works. Their expertise covers the microscopic and the gargantuan: from the smallest cells, atoms, and particles of matter, to the physical and biological systems that shape life on earth, to the stars and planets.
The divisional dean of Science is Ronald Breaker.
Science departments and programs
The FAS is home to three departments in the biological sciences--Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology--and five in the physical sciences--Astronomy, Chemistry, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Mathematics, and Physics.
Biological Sciences
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology is home to research in population, community, ecosystem, and macroecology; in evolutionary genetics, developmental evolution, behavioral evolution, and evolutionary medicine; and in phylogenetics, systematics, and biodiversity.
Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
The principal objective of the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry is to understand living systems at the molecular level.
Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Research in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology spans biology from the organismal to the molecular levels, combining genetic, biochemical, molecular, cell biological and computational approaches to investigate fundamental biological processes.
Physical Sciences
Astronomy
The Department of Astronomy explores the fields of cosmology, exoplanets, extragalactic astronomy, galactic astronomy, high energy astrophysics, solar and stellar astrophysics, and star formation and interstellar medium.
Chemistry
The Chemistry Department is home to research in biophysical chemistry, chemical biology, inorganic chemistry, materials chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, and theoretical chemistry.
Earth and Planetary Sciences
The Department of Earth and Planetary Science combines chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics, and geology to study the Earth’s interior, atmosphere, oceans, environment, causes of global climate change, and the history of life and climate on our planet.
Mathematics
The Department of Mathematics is dedicated to research across the disciplines of mathematics, including real and complex analysis, linear algebra, geometry and topology, calculus, mathematical physics, and more. The department spans many fundamental areas, and is characterized by deep theoretical inquiry as well as collaborations across disciplines.
Physics
The Physics Department is a center of research seeking to answer fundamental scientific questions in the fields of atomic physics and quantum optics, nuclear physics, particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, condensed matter, biological physics, quantum information physics, and applied physics.
News
Maureen Long receives AGU 2026 Louise H. Kellogg Mid-Career Medal
Maureen Long, Bruce D. Alexander ’65 Professor and Chair of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has received the 2026 Louise H. Kellogg Mid-Career Medal from the American Geophysical Union for her interdisciplinary research on the Earth’s deep interior and contributions to mentoring, outreach, and diversity.
Moving back the clock: Did animal life begin 200 million years earlier than we thought?
In a new study, a research group including Derek Briggs, Derek Briggs, the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, suggests animals may have appeared on Earth as early as 800 to 700 million years ago.
New computational strategy modeling electron interactions advances quantum materials research
For the first time, researchers from Yale, including lead author and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Tianyu Zhu, and Caltech used computational strategies to accurately predict material-specific Kondo behavior in real metals.
Adding limestone to Mississippi River Basin farmlands acts as a major carbon sink, study finds
Using a trove of historical records, researchers including Tim Jesper Suhrhoff, Postdoctoral Associate in Earth & Planetary Sciences, have found that a process known as agricultural liming stores more carbon in the soil than it emits, a finding that contradicts conventional emissions accounting.
Expanding understanding
Curiosity-driven research expands our understanding of the world and underpins virtually all applied research, innovation, and technological development. When researchers in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences follow their curiosity, it takes them down unexplored pathways, for the benefit of future generations.
FAS Science contacts
- FAS Dean of Science; Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
- FAS Dean's Office
- Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
- Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
- Senior Associate Dean
- FAS Dean's Office
- Associate Dean
- FAS Dean's Office