Photo: USFWSAlaska (Public domain)
Job description
Work spans time in the field collecting biological data, time in a lab or office analyzing it, and time writing up findings as technical or environmental impact reports for industry, government, or the public. Many biologists supervise technicians and technologists on data collection, while more senior researchers also write proposals to secure funding for future studies. Career paths split between independent research, which usually requires a PhD, and applied roles in conservation, environmental consulting, or agency work, where a master's degree is often sufficient.
Pros
- High upside earning potential, up to $168k
- Opportunity to conduct original research into plant and animal life across many subfields
- A master's degree can support many applied roles, without always requiring a PhD
Cons
- Slower than average projected growth (1.2%)
- Above-average hours, expect more than a standard 40-hour work week
- Independent research roles typically require a PhD, a long and demanding educational path
A typical day
Field season inverts the calendar: today starts at 5am mist-netting songbirds for a population study — birds banded, measured, and released with data whispered to a partner recording in the half-light. By 10 the nets close and the analysis life resumes in the field station: yesterday's data entered, a mixed model rerun, and the summer's sample sizes checked against what the study design demands. Off-season days trade waders for the desk entirely — grant proposals, manuscript revisions, a conference talk built slide by slide, and committee calls about a species management plan where the biologist's data meets politics. The profession's secret is that loving organisms is the entry fee, but statistics, writing, and persistence are the career.
Tasks at the job
- Prepare technical and research reports, such as environmental impact reports, and communicate the results to individuals in industry, government, or the general public.
- Develop and maintain liaisons and effective working relations with groups and individuals, agencies, and the public to encourage cooperative management strategies or to develop information and interpret findings.
- Collect and analyze biological data about relationships among and between organisms and their environment.
- Supervise biological technicians and technologists and other scientists.
- Identify, classify, and study structure, behavior, ecology, physiology, nutrition, culture, and distribution of plant and animal species.
- Prepare requests for proposals or statements of work.
Workplace & working conditions
Work happens indoors in a climate-controlled setting.
There's a regular, moderate amount of time pressure, and you're expected to exercise significant independent judgment day to day. Precision and accuracy are essential to the work, and the work is highly structured, following set procedures.
Education necessary or common
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) for independent research roles; a master's supports many applied positions
Common college majors
Licenses & certifications
- The Wildlife Society Certified Wildlife Biologist (later-career, field-dependent)
Career path
Related fields
Courses to take
- AP Biology
- AP Chemistry
- AP Statistics — the working language of modern biology
- AP Environmental Science
- AP Calculus AB
Clubs, activities & competitions
- Envirothon
- Science Olympiad
- Bird club, herpetology group, or any organism-focused community — deep natural history knowledge still distinguishes biologists
- Science fair with a field study
First steps you can take now
- Run a real field study this season: pick a question, design transects or point counts, collect data for a month, analyze it
- Upload 100 identified observations to iNaturalist
- Email a graduate student whose research you find interesting — ask one specific question about their day
- Learn basic R or Python for data analysis through a free ecology-flavored tutorial
