Degree Requirements
General PhD Requirements at Clarkson University:
- Ninety credit hours minimum (beyond the BS), corresponding to a minimum of three academic years of full-time study; a minimum of 9 credits must be obtained at Clarkson
- master’s degree may be acceptable in lieu of a maximum of 30 credit hours of transfer credit. Official transcripts must be provided before transfer credit is awarded.
- minimum of 30 credit hours of coursework
- minimum of 6 credit hours of seminar
- All work is to be completed within seven years after the candidacy procedure is completed.
- All students must complete the candidacy procedure within two years after admission to the PhD program. Students may have two attempts to pass the candidacy procedure. If they fail in the first attempt, they have two months to make a second attempt. Students who do not complete the candidacy procedure within the time allowed will be dropped from the graduate program.
- A dissertation must be submitted and defended orally before a committee of five faculty members, with at least one member from outside the department of the thesis advisor.
- Students in the PhD program who have not yet completed the candidacy procedure will be called PhD students. After the procedure has been completed, the students will be called PhD candidates.
Specific PhD Requirements for Materials Science and Engineering:
PhD students are required to take 10 courses (30 hours) from the 3 areas below.†
Materials Science Required Core Classes
- Advanced Characterization of Materials
- Advanced Materials Science and Engineering
Materials Properties and Applications (Select 4)
Example courses include:
- Colloids and Interfaces
- Bioelectronics and Bionanotechnology
- Introduction to Polymer Science
- Functional Polymer Systems
- Nanostructured Materials
- Polymer Materials
- Dielectrics
- Electronic Devices for IC Simulation
- Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering Applications
- Additive Manufacturing
- Advanced Mechanics of Composite Materials
- Advanced Welding Metallurgy
- Selected Topics in Materials Engineering
- Principles of Physical Metallurgy
- Intermolecular Forces in Modern Engineering
- Physics of Semiconductor Devices
Materials Processing and Characterization (Select 2)
Example courses include:
- Manufacturing Implications of Advanced Materials Processing
- Microelectronic Circuit Fabrication
- Corrosion Engineering
- Particle Transport, Deposition and Removal
- Scanning Probe Techniques in Soft Condensed Matter Physics
† Other courses not listed here may be credited toward the degree requirements by approval of the thesis advisor and the Director of MSE.
