Ph.D. Requirements:

Students enrolled in the program must satisfy all general requirements of the UNO Graduate School. In addition, the faculty have established the following requirements for students to receive the Ph.D. Degree in Engineering and Applied Science.

Ph.D. candidates must complete a minimum of 51 semester credit hours of graduate course work in an approved program beyond the Bachelor’s Degree, not including dissertation hours.

Courses must be approved by the dissertation advisory committee. Up to 30 appropriate credit hours obtained while earning a Master’s degree my be accepted. The committee shall consider the interdisciplinary nature of the Program when it approves the courses. A minimum of nine credits (three courses) must be taken in the College of Engineering. Up to 6 of the 51 credits may be for thesis research or research methods courses. At least 30 hours of dissertation credit must be earned. Eighteen semester credit hours of course work must satisfy the core requirements, 18 additional credit hours of course work must be in the field of specialization and 12 hours in a minor field.

Departments participating in the program are Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Engineering Management, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, and Physics. The student’s advisory committee will consist of at least five members. No more than three can be from any one department. There must be at least one committee member from the College of Engineering.

Program qualification is administered by the department of the principal advisor(s). Courses are chosen with the consent of the dissertation advisory committee. The committee shall consider the interdisciplinary nature of the program when they approve the courses. A minimum of nine credits (three courses) must be taken in the other college.

In very special circumstances some of the course requirements can be waived or substituted with the approval of the Ph.D. Program Committee, the department chair, and the Graduate School Dean. A General (comprehensive) Examination will be administered by the dissertation advisory committee. The examination will be based on material in the student’s program of study.

After passing the General Examination, the Ph.D. student is expected to write a dissertation prospectus and defend it before the dissertation advisory committee. After a successful defense and committee approval of the prospectus the student may pursue research leading to the dissertation. The dissertation should reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the program. There must be a final public defense of the dissertation administered by the dissertation advisory committee.

to top