Biomedical Engineering Major, PhD

Requirements

All students must complete a minimum of 72 semester credit hours beyond the bachelor’s degree. These credit hours must include a minimum of 36 credit hours of graduate course work graded A-F, a minimum of 24 credit hours in Doctoral Research and Dissertation, and the remaining credit hours to reach a minimum of 72 may or may not be graded A-F.

Students entering the PhD program directly from a baccalaureate program will be required to take a minimum of 36 credit hours of graduate course work graded A-F, exclusive of dissertation credit or seminar courses.

Students entering the PhD program with a master’s degree will be required to take a minimum of 12 credit hours of graduate course work graded A-F, exclusive of dissertation credit or seminar courses.

These students may satisfy the degree requirements beyond the bachelor’s degree with one of the following example combinations:

• 36 credit hours of course work plus 36 credit hours of Doctoral Research and Dissertation (minimum course work).
• 48 credit hours of course work plus 24 credit hours of Doctoral Research and Dissertation (minimum Research and Dissertation).
• Other combinations of course work (≥ 36 credit hours) and Doctoral Research and Dissertation (≥ 24 credit hours) that sum to ≥ 72 total credit hours.

This course work, including that taken for an MS degree, must include:

• A minimum of 6 semester credit hours of graduate work in mathematics courses numbered 400 or above and a minimum of 3 credit hours numbered 500 or above. The department may approve other courses with sufficient mathematical content to meet this requirement.
• A minimum of 21 credit hours of graduate course work in the major. The department may approve other departmental courses to meet this requirement.
• A minimum of 6 credit hours of graduate course work is required at the 600 level. These are exclusive of thesis or dissertation credit.

Additional requirements for all students include the following:

• Registration and participation in the graduate seminar in the major program.
• Meet all departmental examination requirements, which include passing a qualifying exam comprised of written and oral comprehensive exams.
• Presentation of a dissertation proposal to the student’s advisory committee and approval of that proposal by that committee.
• Successful defense of the dissertation.