Ph.D. Program
History of Program
Started in 2002 with approval of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the program has graduated over 15 engineering doctoral students through 2012. These graduates have achieved their career goals and significant recognition as engineers and scientists with institutions of higher learning, private industry, consulting, federal agencies and research laboratories.
Program Milestones
The Doctoral Program provides state-of-the-science engineering rigor and a broad base of environmental engineering fundamentals, policy, and advanced technology and research. Graduation from the Doctoral Program requires the successful completion of four significant milestones and academic achievement:
- Completion of a minimum of 63 hours of doctoral coursework (24 to 36 hours of classroom graduate courses, 6 hours of graduate seminar, and 21 to 33 hours of research);
- Successful completion of the Ph.D. Qualifying Exam;
- Preparation and successful oral defense of a written Ph.D. program research proposal, signed by all committee members;
- Preparation and successful oral defense (open to campus-wide attendance) of a written Ph.D. program dissertation, signed by all committee members.
A more detailed description for each of these milestones can be found in additional pages and links within this site. Many students from outside the Environmental Engineering discipline have successfully completed the Program once they have achieved the required base of math, science and engineering topics equivalent of an ABET accredited engineering program. Each student has a unique program of study including pre-requisite coursework, developed for him/her in consultation with their graduate committee.
Program Expectations
Students will select a graduate dissertation supervisory committee following successful completion of the Ph.D. Qualifying Exam. Dissertation Committees will consist of five doctoral faculty members (at least three must be EVEN faculty) and one faculty Graduate Council Representative (GCR). The GCR is a non-voting member of the Committee who will advocate for the student and help ensure the quality and consistency of the doctoral graduation process.
The following guidelines apply for dissertations in the Doctoral Program:
- The content of the dissertation should be equivalent in quality to research articles in peer-reviewed environmental engineering journals;
- The content for a dissertation must include a minimum of the equivalent of two refereed journal publications, with a typical dissertation being the equivalent of three publications (it is not required that these articles be published or in press prior to graduation);
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