Much of that strength is in the area of evolutionary biology (11 of 45 faculty), and its graduate research has been nationally regarded for decades. SDSU is currently classified as Doctoral II and soon to be classified as Research II in Carnegie rankings its department of Biology is exceptionally strong in research activity and committed to teaching. The Department of Integrative Biology is proposing a joint PhD program in Evolutionary Biology with the Biology Department at San Diego State University, which currently can only offer the MS degree. A central focus of research and teaching in IB is evolution, and the department's students and faculty work on topics that range from the origin of life to the evolution of genomic structure in a variety of plants and animals. Berkeley's Integrative Biology program is rated as the strongest such in the country, and the model on which many other university departments have since been based. The fields of molecular evolution, evolutionary developmental biology, genomics, evolutionary physiology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary epidemiology, agriculture, and paleobiology are only some to which evolution is central. Evolution has always been understood as the cornerstone of modern biology it continues to provide the theoretical, historical, and experimental underpinning for many other fields of biology and other sciences. The field of evolutionary biology is one of the most dynamic in the life sciences. Establish Joint PhD Program in Evolutionary Biology between the Department of Integrative Biology (UCB) and the Department of Biology (SDSU) Description of and Reasons for Anticipated Action

What is evolutionary biology