Carnegie Mellon University

Join us for an information session

Students working with the help of a teaching assistant in the PreCollege Program in Computational Biology

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Join our mailing list to receive information about our world-leading precollege program and sign up for an upcoming information session hosted by Professors Compeau and Kangas, the program directors.

Next session: Tuesday, January 14 at 7 PM ET

Biology is undergoing a computational revolution

Computers are used to design new drugs and vaccines, analyze how species have evolved, and provide new insights into the brain. The Pre-College Program in Computational Biology bridges the gap between computer science and biology by guiding our students to explore some of the beautiful computational approaches that are vital to a complete understanding of modern biology.

Our intensive summer program is taught by award-winning faculty and backed by years of educational research in how to build an effective learning environment. Students work together in teams to generate biological datasets arising from microbes, and then solve computational challenges to answer real research questions about these microbes.

We hope that you will apply to our program!  We’re looking for students who love math and science, especially biology (although not the memorization kind).  If you’ve done some coding before, that’s a plus, but we do not require any previous exposure to programming. We provide some preparatory materials before the program starts that will get you completely up to speed.

Full scholarships are available for socioeconomically underprivileged students.

 Apply!

Our unique curriculum balances experiments and computation

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Start the program with our scientific voyage to capture samples from Pittsburgh's water ecosystems.

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Spend half your day with Prof. Kangas in our cutting-edge teaching lab, executing high-tech experiments to generate biological data.

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Spend half your day with Prof. Compeau in our hackathon, solving computational problems in groups, and applying your code to your data.

What else makes our program great?

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Get tailored support from our army of capable teaching assistants who love working with students.

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Stay in a dormitory and get a taste of life on a college campus, all while making lifelong friendships with a diverse collection of former students.

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Never coded before? No problem! We will make you an empowered programmer with Prof. Compeau's Programming for Lovers project.

PreCollege Program in Computational Biology Testimonial from Erica Stutz

Hear from our students!

Erica Stutz, Class of 2019

"The PreCollege Program in Computational Biology equipped me with the skills I needed to explore the diverse applications of computation in biology. After completing my undergraduate studies at Swarthmore, the program inspired me to pursue a Ph.D. in Computational Biology at Yale."

PreCollege Program in Computational Biology Testimonial from Raehash Shah

Hear from our students!

Raehash Shah, Class of 2019

"The Precollege Program in Computational Biology provided me with a rigorous foundation in programming and data science that prepared me to pursue computational biology in college as a student in Carnegie Mellon's world leading undergraduate program."

PreCollege Program in Computational Biology Testimonial from Eliza

Hear from our students!

Eliza, Class of 2024

"I had never coded before the PreCollege Program in Computational Biology, and by the end of the program, I had become a strong coder. Anyone can thrive in this program, especially with the support of the dedicated hands-on teaching staff."