PhD in Materials Science – Degree Requirements
The Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree requires 33 total credits which include 24 credit hours of course work and 9 credits of doctoral dissertation work on a research topic approved by your advisor.
Students accepted to the Ph.D. program who already earned a Master’s degree from another program or university are required to complete 9 credits of doctoral dissertation and will have their previous coursework evaluated by the faculty to determine if additional courses are required.
The requirements are outlined below.
- Required Core Courses (9 credits) must take the following three courses:
- MSEG608 – Structure and Properties of Materials I (3 credits)
- MSEG803 – Equilibria in Materials Systems (3 credits)
- MSEG804 – Kinetics in Materials Systems (3 credits)
- Required Non-Core Courses (6-12 credits) must be chosen from the approved list of four (4) non-core courses:
Choose a minimum of two (2) from the following four (4) courses. If you choose to take more than two, they can count as electives.- MSEG640 – Applied Quantum Mechanics I (3 credits)
- MSEG841 – Solid State Materials I (3 credits)
- MSEG832 – Principles of Polymer Synthesis (3 credits)
- MSEG835 – Polymer Physics (3 credits)
- Technical Elective Courses (9 credits) must be chosen from the list of five (5) non-core courses above or other courses approved by the student’s research advisor:
- Elective courses will be chosen after discussion with student’s advisor and will usually be related to the student’s area of research. Students can choose 600-800 level technical courses from any of the departments within the College of Engineering, Physics or Chemistry.
- Additional courses from the list above can be used to fulfill this requirement.
- Ph.D Dissertation Requirements – (9) credits must be obtained by completing your Doctoral Dissertation:
- Complete and pass the Ph.D. Qualifying Examination and be admitted into Doctoral Candidacy
- MSEG969 – Doctoral Dissertation (9 credits)
- Data Defense – approximately 6 months prior to defending
- Defense – each student must defend their research work to their Committee.
- Ph.D. Dissertation: The dissertation must be of publishable quality, containing original results of the student’s research effort and must be presented to and approved by the student’s research advisor, Committee, and the Department Chairperson.
- All graduate students are expected to do the following:
- Must take four 800 level courses to earn degree.
- Students must earn a grade of B- or higher in all courses counting towards the degree requirement. The University requires graduate students have a GPA of 3.0 or higher to earn their degree.
- Attend departmental seminars.
