IPS Home
Three Campuses. One Program.
The Integrated Plant Sciences program is a central access point for prospective students in basic and translational plant and fungal research opportunities at the University of Georgia. Most programs give you a lab. IPS gives you a statewide research network where students can select a lab in one of the 11 participating graduate programs spanning basic and applied research across all three UGA campuses, each with its own strengths.
Athens
UGA’s flagship campus with world leaders in plant and fungal genomics, epigenetics, evolution, biochemistry, and biology in both a basic and translational context. Home to the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, Genomics Core, and Georgia Advanced Computing Resource Center.
Griffin
Home to UGA’s historic Georgia Experiment Station, just south of Atlanta. Griffin leads in turfgrass breeding, urban agriculture, food safety and crop and pest management. It’s where plant science meets one of the fastest-growing regions in the country.
Tifton
In the heart of Georgia’s farm country, Tifton puts you in the field with the breeders, physiologists, precision agriculture, and pathologists behind the region’s peanut, cotton, vegetable and turfgrass varieties. It’s discovery at production scale, with growers down the road.
Lab to Field: World-Class Faculty Will Mentor You
Join graduate students in the plant sciences mentored by 93 faculty across UGA’s Athens, Tifton and Griffin campuses and 11 participating PhD programs. It’s one of the most interdisciplinary and comprehensive plant science graduate communities anywhere. Wherever you’re based, UGA can move your research from discovery to impact.
Discover: Uncover the genes, pathways and microbes that matter.
Test: Prove them in greenhouses and field trials across Georgia.
Deliver: Get them to growers and markets through UGA Extension and industry partners,
at the nation’s No. 1 university for new products to market from research.
Find your mentor. Reach out to faculty whose research excites you, and be sure to introduce yourself as a prospective IPS applicant.
Fall 2027 Applications
Two paths in. One goal: the right fit.
Explore through lab rotations, or join a lab directly if you already know where you belong. Either way, IPS connects you with advisors and collaborators across all three campuses and 11 PhD programs, so you find the lab, the part of the pipeline, and the career path that fit you.
Applications received by December 1, 2026 are guaranteed review for Fall 2027 admissions.
“IPS was hugely important for me coming into UGA as someone who had wide-ranging interests and wasn’t sure what I wanted to pursue.”
Anne Frances Jarrell, Fall 2021 Cohort
“It was helpful to see how different labs are run during rotations. Even if you are set on a lab coming in, it helps you find committee members and interact with more faculty and students. “
Logan Novak, Fall 2022 Cohort
The University of Georgia has a long tradition of outstanding plant science research. Come be a part of it!
To learn more about the research opportunities within the IPS program, please contact us.