Doctor of Philosophy

Students should take classes relevant to their application area interests. The core curriculum and domain biology/medicine requirements should be completed by the end of the second year of graduate study. Classes on the following list are pre-approved. Other classes can be used to fulfill this requirement with department approval.

Domain Biology courses can be taken as Credit/No Credit (CR/NC).

During the third year of training, each doctoral student must give a thesis pre-proposal seminar that describes evolving research plans.

Each student must be a teaching assistant for two courses as assigned by the Biomedical Data Science Executive Committee; one should be completed in the first two years of study. Students may register for up to three BMDS 295 Biomedical Informatics Teaching Methods units to obtain credit for each teaching assistantship.

After applying for Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR) status and completing 135 units, the PhD candidate should register each quarter for BIOMEDIN 802 TGR PhD Dissertation so that their research effort may be counted toward the degree. 

Each student must present and defend their dissertation work before a University Oral Examination Committee that includes at least one member of the DBDS Faculty. The committee determines whether the student’s general knowledge of the field and the details of their completed research are sufficient to be granted the doctoral degree. Further information about the Oral Examination and the submission of the written dissertation is in the DBDS Student Handbook opens in a new taband university policies cited therein.

The student is expected to demonstrate an ability to present scholarly material and research in a lecture at a formal seminar.

The most important requirement for the PhD degree is the dissertation. Each student must secure the agreement of a member of the DBDS faculty to act as the doctoral dissertation advisor or obtain departmental approval for a dissertation advisor to be appointed from outside the major department. This approval will depend on research rationale, potential advisor’s commitment to program’s rules, and identification of a DBDS faculty to participate in the thesis committee.  See  DBDS Student Handbook opens in a new tab for details.

After applying for Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR) status and completing 135 units, the PhD candidate should register each quarter for BMDS 802 TGR PhD Dissertation so that their research effort may be counted toward the degree.

Each student must present and defend their dissertation work before a University Oral Examination Committee that includes at least one member of the DBDS faculty. The committee determines whether the student’s general knowledge of the field and the details of their completed research are sufficient to be granted the doctoral degree. Further information about the Oral Examination and the submission of the written dissertation is in the DBDS Student Handbook opens in a new taband university policies cited therein.

The student is expected to demonstrate an ability to present scholarly material and research in a lecture at a formal seminar.

The student is expected to demonstrate an ability to present scholarly material in concise written form. Each student must write a paper suitable for publication, usually discussing their doctoral research project. The student’s advisor must approve this paper as suitable for submission to a refereed journal before the department confers the doctoral degree.

The dissertation must be accepted by a doctoral dissertation reading committee composed of the principal dissertation advisor and two other readers. A fourth reader may be added at the discretion of the student and the principal advisor.