[Joel] [KGI logo]

About the
Keck Graduate Institute

[517 Watson Way]

History and Mission

The Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences is the newest of the seven colleges of The Claremont Colleges, a consortium of private schools in Claremont, California. It was founded in 1997 by Henry Riggs — then president of Harvey Mudd — through a $50 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation.

KGI is the only American graduate institution devoted solely to bioscience education and discovery. Its core values are

  • Entrepreneurial and Reflective
  • Ethical and Responsible
  • Collaborative and Independent
  • Interdisciplinary and Applied

The 15 full-time faculty represent a range of disciplines, including biology, chemistry, engineering and four business faculty.

Degree Programs

[KGI aerial map] The main KGI graduate degree programs are:

The college also has a non-degree certificate program for PhD students and postdocs that is an abbreviated version of the PPM program.

In Fall 2011, KGI recorded record enrollment of 150 students across all programs.

[TMP]

Team Masters Project

The culmination of the MBS degree is the Team Masters Project, which occupies one-third of the students’ second year of study. Under the supervision of a faculty member and an industry sponsor, teams of three to five students work from August until May to solve a real world problem for a real company or nonprofit.

The projects provide students with a chance to apply their coursework in a real world setting, while addressing a specific need of the sponsoring organization. Students sign a non-disclosure agreement and assign IP rights to the sponsor, while the sponsor pays a fee to support the program and the students.

Previous sponsors have included Abbot Nutrition, Allergan, Amgen, Amilyn, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Eli Lily, Genentech, Gilead, Invitrogen, Northrop Grumman and Pioneer Hi-Bred.

Directions

Located in Claremont, California, east of Los Angeles, the Keck Graduate Institute is in the southwest corner of the Claremont Colleges. It can be reached by car or by train.


Credits: Photo by Joel West; aerial photo by Google.

Last Updated August 29, 2011

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