Conservation Biology is a discipline concerned with the preservation, management, and restoration of biodiversity. The field is inherently interdisciplinary and merges natural and social sciences to focus on understanding of the factors responsible for promoting and maintaining biodiversity on the one hand and the challenges of mitigating the extinction of species, preserving sensitive habitats and managing landscapes that support biodiversity on the other hand. The program in Conservation Biology offers an interdisciplinary graduate certificate in conservation biology that involves contributions from anthropology and sociology, biological sciences, economics, geography, geology, history, and political science. The program applies a multifaceted understanding of the factors affecting the preservation of biological diversity. It is centered in the Biological Sciences Department but includes faculty members from the departments of Environmental & Plant Biology, Economics, Geography, and Political Science.

The certificate program is designed to provide graduate students in the natural sciences exposure to the social, economic, and political approaches for conserving biological diversity. Conversely, graduate students in the social sciences are given the opportunity to obtain expertise in biological principles that can be used to understand how human altered habitats may lead to a loss of biological diversity. Students enrolled in any master's or doctoral program at Ohio University are eligible to apply for the certificate. Each student in the program chooses a certificate adviser to oversee the completion of requirements.