Doctoral Program in Epidemiology & Translational Science

The application for Fall 2025 entry is now closed. Check back in September 2025 for the opening of the next admissions cycle.

The PhD program in Epidemiology and Translational Science, a collaboration between the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and UCSF’s renowned Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, offers high-caliber training in core skills of epidemiologic and biostatistical methods along with practical research rotations that enhance classroom training. 

Epidemiology serves as a key discipline in team science and in problem-based learning. We view the use of epidemiology in translational science as a critical perspective and set of research methods that will move basic scientific discoveries to practical clinical applications and dissemination of new basic and clinical knowledge to population health settings. A central goal is to take advantage of the highly interdisciplinary nature of UCSF and to adopt a transdisciplinary approach to graduate education.

The PhD program is a four- to five-year course of study for individuals who wish to pursue independent research careers in epidemiology and translational science and who have already completed training at the master's level in epidemiology, public health or a related field. Candidates without a master's degree may want to consider our Master's Degree in Clinical Research. We encourage applications to our PhD program from those who are successfully completing our master's program.

We especially encourage applications from students interested in our 17 areas of concentration with particular research depth at UCSF:

Our Students

We aim to build cohorts of about six PhD students, with 35-40 PhD students in the program at any given time. Students are funded from a combination of sources, including UCSF fellowships, individual or institutional dissertation fellowships from federal, state, local and non-profit sources, and employment on faculty research projects. We work with admitted students to identify funding opportunities. The UCSF PhD program admitted its first cohort of students in 2010, and our alumni have positions in academic, government, non-profit and industry research and public health institutions.

Distinctive Features of the Program

The UCSF PhD in Epidemiology and Translational Science emphasizes translation from research to population health impact. We are located in a school of medicine on a health sciences campus, affording countless opportunities for training in clinical, basic and population sciences with faculty in our department and other UCSF departments.

Our training program takes advantage of these resources and emphasizes applied research rotations with leading research groups to complement core classroom training. Students take courses within the department's Training In Clinical Research program, throughout UCSF, or via intercampus exchange elsewhere in the UC system or several other Bay Area universities. We emphasize not only theoretical research skills but practical aspects of conducting research, including successful multidisciplinary collaborations, experience in teaching epidemiology and translational sciences, and planning/completion of original research. With this model of formal and applied training, our graduates emerge as a new generation of epidemiologists and translational scientists who will transform both clinical practice and population health.

Because we accept only a small group of top-notch PhD students each year, our program is flexible and accommodating to individual professional goals and backgrounds.