Universidad del Rosario is a prestigious Colombian University that typically ranks in the top five universities in the country and in the top 50 in Latin America. It was founded in 1653 and has a long tradition in the areas of Medicine, Law, Economics and, Social and Political Sciences. The Faculty of Natural Sciences was founded in 2008, with the goal of creating strong undergraduate and graduate programs that excel in both teaching and research. The Faculty has two Departments (Biology and Earth System Sciences), a Master and a PhD program in Natural Sciences, and a shared PhD program with the School of Medicine in Biological and Biomedical Sciences. The Faculty published over 90 international peer-reviewed articles in 2020. 

 

The Biology Department has 17 full-time faculty members and has a vigorous and growing research agenda, which spans pure and applied research questions and engages with key stakeholders to address sustainability issues of national, regional and international importance. The research agenda focuses on four areas: (i) Ecology, (ii) Environmental Sciences, (iii) Evolution and Genomics, and (iv) Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. The Biology Department works closely with the new Earth System Science Department (ESS), which was created in 2019, and currently has three full-time faculty members that study current and future challenges that the Earth (including humans) will face, especially in tropical South America.