mit phd thesis defense

PhD Thesis Guide

This phd thesis guide will guide you step-by-step through the thesis process, from your initial letter of intent to submission of the final document..

All associated forms are conveniently consolidated in the section at the end.

Deadlines & Requirements

Students should register for HST.ThG during any term in which they are conducting research towards their thesis. Regardless of year in program students registered for HST.ThG in a regular term (fall or spring) must meet with their research advisor and complete the  Semi-Annual PhD Student Progress Review Form to receive credit.

Years 1 - 2

• Students participating in lab rotations during year 1, may use the optional MEMP Rotation Registration Form , to formalize the arrangement and can earn academic credit by enrolling in HST.599. 
• A first letter of intent ( LOI-1 ) proposing a general area of thesis research and research advisor is required by April 30th of the second year of registration.
• A second letter of intent ( LOI-2 ) proposing a thesis committee membership and providing a more detailed description of the thesis research is required by April 30th of the third year of registration for approval by the HST-IMES Committee on Academic Programs (HICAP).

Year 4 

• Beginning in year 4, (or after the LOI-2 is approved) the student must meet with their thesis committee at least once per semester.
• Students must formally defend their proposal before the approved thesis committee, and submit their committee approved proposal to HICAP  by April 30 of the forth year of registration.
• Meetings with the thesis committee must be held at least once per semester. 

HST has developed these policies to help keep students on track as they progress through their PhD program. Experience shows that students make more rapid progress towards graduation when they interact regularly with a faculty committee and complete their thesis proposal by the deadline.

Getting Started

Check out these resources  for finding a research lab.

The Thesis Committee: Roles and Responsibilities

Students perform doctoral thesis work under the guidance of a thesis committee consisting of at least three faculty members from Harvard and MIT (including a chair and a research advisor) who will help guide the research. Students are encouraged to form their thesis committee early in the course of the research and in any case by the end of the third year of registration. The HST IMES Committee on Academic Programs (HICAP) approves the composition of the thesis committee via the letter of intent and the thesis proposal (described below). 

Research Advisor

The research advisor is responsible for overseeing the student's thesis project. The research advisor is expected to:

• oversee the research and mentor the student;
• provide a supportive research environment, facilities, and financial support;
• discuss expectations, progress, and milestones with the student and complete the  Semi-Annual PhD Student Progress Review Form each semester;
• assist the student to prepare for the oral qualifying exam;
• guide the student in selecting the other members of the thesis committee;
• help the student prepare for, and attend, meetings of the full thesis committee, to be held at least once per semester;
• help the student prepare for, and attend, the thesis defense;
• evaluate the final thesis document.

The research advisor is chosen by the student and must be a faculty member of MIT* or Harvard University and needs no further approval.  HICAP may approve other individuals as research advisor on a student-by-student basis. Students are advised to request approval of non-faculty research advisors as soon as possible.  In order to avoid conflicts of interest, the research advisor may not also be the student's academic advisor. In the event that an academic advisor becomes the research advisor, a new academic advisor will be assigned.

The student and their research advisor must complete the Semi-Annual PhD Student Progress Review during each regular term in order to receive academic credit for research.  Download Semi Annual Review Form

*MIT Senior Research Staff are considered equivalent to faculty members for the purposes of research advising. No additional approval is required.

Thesis Committee Chair

Each HST PhD thesis committee is headed administratively by a chair, chosen by the student in consultation with the research advisor. The thesis committee chair is expected to:

• provide advice and guidance concerning the thesis research; 
• oversee meetings of the full thesis committee, to be held at least once per semester;
• preside at the thesis defense; 
• review and evaluate the final thesis document.

The thesis committee chair must be well acquainted with the academic policies and procedures of the institution granting the student's degree and be familiar with the student's area of research. The research advisor may not simultaneously serve as thesis committee chair.

For HST PhD students earning degrees through MIT, the thesis committee chair must be an MIT faculty member. A select group of HST program faculty without primary appointments at MIT have been pre-approved by HICAP to chair PhD theses awarded by HST at MIT in cases where the MIT research advisor is an MIT faculty member.**

HST PhD students earning their degree through Harvard follow thesis committee requirements set by the unit granting their degree - either the Biophysics Program or the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

** List of non-MIT HST faculty approved to chair MIT thesis proposals when the research advisor is an MIT faculty member.

In addition to the research advisor and the thesis committee chair, the thesis committee must include one or more readers. Readers are expected to:

• attend meetings of the full thesis committee, to be held at least once per semester;
• attend the thesis defense; 

Faculty members with relevant expertise from outside of Harvard/MIT may serve as readers, but they may only be counted toward the required three if approved by HICAP.

The members of the thesis committee should have complementary expertise that collectively covers the areas needed to advise a student's thesis research. The committee should also be diverse, so that members are able to offer different perspectives on the student's research. When forming a thesis committee, it is helpful to consider the following questions: 

• Do the individuals on the committee collectively have the appropriate expertise for the project?
• Does the committee include at least one individual who can offer different perspectives on the student's research?  The committee should include at least one person who is not closely affiliated with the student's primary lab. Frequent collaborators are acceptable in this capacity if their work exhibits intellectual independence from the research advisor.
• If the research has a near-term clinical application, does the committee include someone who can add a translational or clinical perspective?  
• Does the committee conform to HST policies in terms of number, academic appointments, and affiliations of the committee members, research advisor, and thesis committee chair as described elsewhere on this page?

[Friendly advice: Although there is no maximum committee size, three or four is considered optimal. Committees of five members are possible, but more than five is unwieldy.]

Thesis Committee Meetings

Students must meet with their thesis committee at least once each semester beginning in the fourth year of registration. It is the student's responsibility to schedule these meetings; students who encounter difficulties in arranging regular committee meetings can contact Julie Greenberg at jgreenbe [at] mit.edu (jgreenbe[at]mit[dot]edu) .

The format of the thesis committee meeting is at the discretion of the thesis committee chair. In some cases, the following sequence may be helpful:

• The thesis committee chair, research advisor, and readers meet briefly without the student in the room;
• The thesis committee chair and readers meet briefly with the student, without the advisor in the room;
• The student presents their research progress, answers questions, and seeks guidance from the members of the thesis committee;

Please note that thesis committee meetings provide an important opportunity for students to present their research and respond to questions. Therefore, it is in the student's best interest for the research advisor to refrain from defending the research in this setting.

Letters of Intent

Students must submit two letters of intent ( LOI-1 and LOI-2 ) with applicable signatures. 

In LOI-1, students identify a research advisor and a general area of thesis research, described in 100 words or less. It should include the area of expertise of the research advisor and indicate whether IRB approval (Institutional Review Board; for research involving human subjects) and/or IACUC approval (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee; for research involving vertebrate animals) will be required and, if so, from which institutions. LOI-1 is due by April 30 of the second year of registration and and should be submitted to HICAP, c/o Traci Anderson in E25-518. 

In LOI-2, students provide a description of the thesis research, describing the Background and Significance of the research and making a preliminary statement of Specific Aims (up to 400 words total). In LOI-2, a student also proposes the membership of their thesis committee. In addition to the research advisor, the proposed thesis committee must include a chair and one or more readers, all selected to meet the specified criteria . LOI-2 is due by April 30th of the third year of registration and should be submitted to HICAP, c/o Traci Anderson in E25-518.

LOI-2 is reviewed by the HST-IMES Committee on Academic Programs (HICAP) to determine if the proposed committee meets the specified criteria and if the committee members collectively have the complementary expertise needed to advise the student in executing the proposed research. If HICAP requests any changes to the proposed committee, the student must submit a revised LOI-2 for HICAP review by September 30th of the fourth year of registration. HICAP must approve LOI-2 before the student can proceed to presenting and submitting their thesis proposal. Any changes to the thesis committee membership following HICAP approval of LOI-2 and prior to defense of the thesis proposal must be reported by submitting a revised LOI-2 form to HICAP, c/o tanderso [at] mit.edu (Traci Anderson) . After final HICAP approval of LOI-2, which confirms the thesis committee membership, the student may proceed to present their thesis proposal to the approved thesis committee, as described in the next section.

Students are strongly encouraged to identify tentative thesis committee members and begin meeting with them as early as possible to inform the direction of their research. Following submission of LOI-2, students are required to hold at least one thesis committee meeting per semester. Students must document these meetings via the Semi- Annual PhD Student Progress Review form in order to receive a grade reflecting satisfactory progress in HST.ThG.

Thesis Proposal and Proposal Presentation

For MEMP students receiving their degrees through MIT, successful completion of the Oral Qualifying Exam is a prerequisite for the thesis proposal presentation. For MEMP students receiving their degrees through Harvard, the oral qualifying exam satisfies the proposal presentation requirement.

Proposal Document

Each student must present a thesis proposal to a thesis committee that has been approved by HICAP via the LOI-2 and then submit a full proposal package to HICAP by April 30th of the fourth year of registration. The only exception is for students who substantially change their research focus after the fall term of their third year; in those cases the thesis proposal must be submitted within three semesters of joining a new lab. Students registering for thesis research (HST.THG) who have not met this deadline may be administratively assigned a grade of "U" (unsatisfactory) and receive an academic warning.

The written proposal should be no longer than 4500 words, excluding references. This is intended to help students develop their proposal-writing skills by gaining experience composing a practical proposal; the length is comparable to that required for proposals to the NIH R03 Small Research Grant Program. The proposal should clearly define the research problem, describe the proposed research plan, and defend the significance of the work. Preliminary results are not required. If the proposal consists of multiple aims, with the accomplishment of later aims based on the success of earlier ones, then the proposal should describe a contingency plan in case the early results are not as expected.

Proposal Presentation

The student must formally defend the thesis proposal before the full thesis committee that has been approved by HICAP.

Students should schedule the meeting and reserve a conference room and any audio visual equipment they may require for their presentation. To book a conference room in E25, please contact Joseph Stein ( jrstein [at] mit.edu (jrstein[at]mit[dot]edu) ).

Following the proposal presentation, students should make any requested modifications to the proposal for the committee members to review. Once the committee approves the proposal, the student should obtain the signatures of the committee members on the forms described below as part of the proposal submission package.

[Friendly advice: As a professional courtesy, be sure your committee members have a complete version of your thesis proposal at least one week in advance of the proposal presentation.]

Submission of Proposal Package

When the thesis committee has approved the proposal, the student submits the proposal package to HICAP, c/o Traci Anderson in E25-518, for final approval. HICAP may reject a thesis proposal if it has been defended before a committee that was not previously approved via the LOI-2.

The proposal package includes the following: 

• the proposal document
• a brief description of the project background and significance that explains why the work is important;
• the specific aims of the proposal, including a contingency plan if needed; and
• an indication of the methods to be used to accomplish the specific aims.
• signed research advisor agreement form(s);
• signed chair agreement form (which confirms a successful proposal defense);
• signed reader agreement form(s).

Thesis Proposal Forms

• SAMPLE Title Page (doc)
• Research Advisor Agreement Form (pdf)
• Chair Agreement Form (pdf)
• Reader Agreement Form (pdf)

Thesis Defense and Final Thesis Document

When the thesis is substantially complete and fully acceptable to the thesis committee, a public thesis defense is scheduled for the student to present his/her work to the thesis committee and other members of the community. The thesis defense is the last formal examination required for receipt of a doctoral degree. To be considered "public", a defense must be announced to the community at least five working days in advance. At the defense, the thesis committee determines if the research presented is sufficient for granting a doctoral degree. Following a satisfactory thesis defense, the student submits the final thesis document, approved by the research advisor, to Traci Anderson via email (see instructions below).

[Friendly advice: Contact jrstein [at] mit.edu (Joseph Stein) at least two weeks before your scheduled date to arrange for advertising via email and posters. A defense can be canceled for insufficient public notice.]

Before the Thesis Defense 

Committee Approves Student to Defend: The thesis committee, working with the student and reviewing thesis drafts, concludes that the doctoral work is complete. The student should discuss the structure of the defense (general guidelines below) with the thesis committee chair and the research advisor. 

Schedule the Defense: The student schedules a defense at a time when all members of the thesis committee will be physical present. Any exceptions must be approved in advance by the IMES/HST Academic Office.

Reserve Room: It is the student's responsibility to reserve a room and any necessary equipment. Please contact imes-reservation [at] mit.edu (subject: E25%20Room%20Reservation) (IMES Reservation) to  reserve rooms E25-140, E25-141, E25-119/121, E25-521. 

Final Draft: A complete draft of the thesis document is due to the thesis committee two weeks prior to the thesis defense to allow time for review.  The thesis should be written as a single cohesive document; it may include content from published papers (see libraries website on " Use of Previously Published Material in a Thesis ") but it may not be a simple compilation of previously published materials.

Publicize the Defense:   The IMES/HST Academic Office invites the community to attend the defense via email and a notice on the HST website. This requires that the student email a thesis abstract and supplemental information to  jrstein [at] mit.edu (Joseph Stein)  two weeks prior to the thesis defense. The following information should be included: Date and time, Location, (Zoom invitation with password, if offering a hybrid option), Thesis Title, Names of committee members, with academic and professional titles and institutional affiliations. The abstract is limited to 250 words for the poster, but students may optionally submit a second, longer abstract for the email announcement.

Thesis Defense Guidelines

Public Defense: The student should prepare a presentation of 45-60 minutes in length, to be followed by a public question and answer period of 15–30 minutes at discretion of the chair.

Committee Discussion:  Immediately following the public thesis presentation, the student meets privately with the thesis committee and any other faculty members present to explore additional questions at the discretion of the faculty. Then the thesis committee meets in executive session and determines whether the thesis defense was satisfactory. The committee may suggest additions or editorial changes to the thesis document at this point.

Chair Confirms Pass: After the defense, the thesis committee chair should inform Traci Anderson of the outcome via email to tanderso [at] mit.edu (tanderso[at]mit[dot]edu) .

Submitting the Final Thesis Document

Please refer to the MIT libraries  thesis formatting guidelines .

Title page notes. Sample title page  from the MIT Libraries.

Program line : should read, "Submitted to the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, in partial fulfillment of the the requirements for the degree of ... "

Copyright : Starting with the June 2023 degree period and as reflected in the  MIT Thesis Specifications , all students retain the copyright of their thesis.  Please review this section for how to list on your title page Signature Page: On the "signed" version, only the student and research advisor should sign. Thesis committee members are not required to sign. On the " Accepted by " line, please list: Collin M. Stultz, MD, PhD/Director, Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology/ Nina T. and Robert H. Rubin Professor in Medical Engineering and Science/Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

The Academic Office will obtain Professor Stultz's signature.

Thesis Submission Components.  As of 4/2021, the MIT libraries have changed their thesis submissions guidelines and are no longer accepting hard copy theses submissions. For most recent guidance from the libraries:  https://libguides.mit.edu/mit-thesis-faq/instructions  

Submit to the Academic Office, via email ( tanderso [at] mit.edu (tanderso[at]mit[dot]edu) )

pdf/A-1 of the final thesis should include an UNSIGNED title page

A separate file with a SIGNED title page by the student and advisor, the Academic Office will get Dr. Collin Stultz's signature.

For the MIT Library thesis processing, fill out the "Thesis Information" here:  https://thesis-submit.mit.edu/

File Naming Information:  https://libguides.mit.edu/

Survey of Earned Doctorates.  The University Provost’s Office will contact all doctoral candidates via email with instructions for completing this survey.

Links to All Forms in This Guide

• MEMP Rotation Form (optional)
• Semi-Annual Progress Review Form
• Letter of Intent One
• Letter of Intent Two

Final Thesis

• HST Sample thesis title page  (signed and unsigned)
• Sample thesis title page  (MIT Libraries)

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The Department’s long-standing emphasis on original research is a key element in the Candidate’s educational development.

The thesis defense has two stages: i) a final Thesis Committee Meeting report, and ii) a defense. The final Thesis Committee Meeting involves only the student and the Thesis Committee but it must include all members of the Thesis Committee. In highly unusual circumstances, the Chair of the Graduate Committee may approve faculty absences or substitutions for the preliminary exam. Such approval must be obtained in writing at least one week in advance of the meeting. Approval is only possible with written support from the chair of the Thesis Committee and the faculty member to be replaced or absent.

At least one week prior to the final Thesis Committee Meeting, the student will email PDF copies of the final thesis report document to the thesis committee members. The final thesis report usually will involve a brief presentation summarizing research results and the contents of the thesis document. The Thesis Committee will prepare a set of comments, suggestions, or requirement, as necessary for further experiments, more careful data analysis, more rigorous interpretation, or improved expression. If the Thesis Committee discovers major deficiencies, a second progress report may be required.

The Thesis Defense is open to the public. The defense can only be scheduled after all deficiencies identified in the final Thesis Committee meeting report have been addressed. In no case will the defense occur sooner than two weeks after the final Thesis Committee meeting. At least two weeks prior to the defense, the Candidate will email PDF copies of the final thesis document to the Thesis Committee members. The committee members must decide within these two weeks if the thesis document is acceptable to proceed to defense. The committee members must decide within these two weeks if the thesis document is acceptable to proceed to defense. If the thesis is unacceptable, the defense will be rescheduled following correction of the thesis. It is the student’s responsibility to reserve a classroom for the Thesis Defense. If the student wishes to reserve one of the BE Classrooms (56-614, 16-220), they should contact the BE Academic Office, any other classroom reservation must be reserved through the Registrar’s Office .

The defense begins with a formal presentation of approximately 45 minutes based on the thesis. The floor is then opened to questions from the general audience, which is thereafter excused. The Thesis Committee, and any other MIT faculty that wish to remain, continue the examination of the Candidate in private. The Candidate and any non-Thesis Committee faculty still present are finally excused from the room for the final Committee deliberations and decision. A majority yes vote is required to approve the thesis. It is the responsibility of the Thesis Committee Chair to give the Committee’s decision whether the thesis is satisfactory or unsatisfactory to the Candidate and to the BE Academic Office. In the event of vote not to pass, the Thesis Committee will make recommendations as to needed changes to render the thesis satisfactory. The revised thesis will then be submitted for a second final defense.

Note: Students are advised to keep in mind that the months of May and August tend to be the months where scheduling a presentation may be difficult because of faculty unavailability.

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Guidelines for Physics Doctoral Candidates

The “Department of Physics Doctoral Guidelines” serves as the handbook of graduate policies and procedures. It contains academic information such as breadth and specialty requirements, General Exam information, time lines of satisfactory progress and thesis information. It also contains research information regarding funding, switching groups and other policies/procedures.

Fall 2024 Written Exam Schedule

Physics Core Written Exam is scheduled in the week prior to the start of each fall and spring term.

NOTE: You must complete the Written Exam Application at least a week prior to the test date.

Upcoming Exam Dates

• Fall 2024: August 26th & 28th from 9:00am to 1:00pm in 26-152.
• Spring 2025: January 16th & 17th from 9:00am to 1:00pm in TBA.

Introduction

This document describes the doctoral program in the Physics Department. It supplements the MIT OGE Graduate Policies and Procedures , which outlines the general Institute requirements.

The primary goals of the graduate program in physics at MIT are to solidify and broaden your knowledge of physics and to teach you how to do research, how to identify important problems, and how to communicate scientific information effectively. In short, you will be trained to become a professional physicist and a productive member of the scientific community.

The major steps involved in your graduate career are described in the various sections here.

The Physics Graduate Program

The physics graduate program is under the direction of the Physics Education Committee, which includes members with the following graduate responsibilities:

• Prof. Lindley Winslow , Associate Department Head
• Prof. Matthew Evans , Graduate Admissions Officer
• Prof. Mehran Kardar , General Examination and Requirements Coordinator
• Prof. Christoph Paus , Graduate Appointments Coordinator
• Prof. William Detmold , Graduate Student Coordinator, Graduate Officer
• Ms. Shannon Larkin , Academic Administrator

The staff in Academic Programs, Room 4-315 , can direct you to committee members most appropriate to your specific questions or concerns. All graduate students and faculty are affiliated with one of the Department’s four research divisions. Each division is headed by a faculty member with responsibilities for aspects of the graduate program of that division’s students. The current Division Heads are:

• Prof. Raymond Ashoori , Atomic, Bio-, Condensed Matter, and Plasma Physics
• Prof. Anna Frebel , Astrophysics
• Prof. Gunther Roland , Experimental Nuclear and Particle Physics
• Prof. Iain Stewart , Theoretical Nuclear and Particle Physics

Professor Lindley Winslow serves as the advisor for student concerns about scientific misconduct issues including interactions with research supervisors, data integrity, and authorship. In addition, Physics REFS can provide mediation services between student peers and/or faculty members and Shannon Larkin , Academic Administrator, can be helpful in dealing with sensitive issues.

Every incoming student is assigned an academic advisor. Under most circumstances this faculty member will continue to advise the student until graduation. Later, when the student joins a research group, another faculty member will become his or her research supervisor. Thus, for most of their time in the Department, students have two separate faculty members to whom they can turn for help and advice. Throughout these guidelines, “advisor” refers to the academic advisor. The term “supervisor” is associated with the research or thesis supervisor, even though this person is often colloquially known as the “thesis advisor.”

Types of Financial Support

Note: For more detailed information regarding the cost of attendance, including specific costs for tuition and fees, books and supplies, housing and food as well as transportation, please visit the Student Financial Services (SFS) website .

Students with a Research Assistantship (RA) or Teaching Assistantship (TA) are expected to spend full time on education and assigned duties and may not engage in any other activity for compensation without the specific approval of the Department Head. Graduate assistants are required to register for an academic load of 36-48 units (which may include Pre-Thesis Research, Thesis Research and/or Physics Teaching) during any term (including summer) in which they have any form of MIT or Departmental support. In addition to course work, students doing research should always register for Pre-Thesis Research (8.391 in the fall and 8.392 in the spring or summer) or, after turning in a thesis proposal, Thesis Research (8.THG). The number of units will vary between 12 and 48 according to the approximate number of hours per week spent on research. This gives students academic credit for their research work. Teaching assistants may register for 12-48 units of Physics Teaching (8.399). In this way, TAs also receive academic credit for teaching. Under most circumstances, the normal course load for graduate students with a full-time RA or TA who have not yet completed their qualifying exams is two academic subjects.

The current stipend rates for RAs and TAs are available through the Academic Programs Office. For both RAs and TAs, full tuition and health insurance is paid over and above the stipend. If a student loses RA support due to termination of a research contract, the Department will provide support for one additional term (in the form of a TA) and will make every effort to provide an alternative form of continuing support.

The periods for RA appointments are as follows:

• Fall: September 1 to January 15
• Spring: January 16 to May 31
• Summer: June 1 to August 31

Research Assistantships (RAs)

These appointments are generally for the academic year, plus the summer. The amount of time a student spends on RA duties depends on the amount of course work he or she needs and on the requirements of the group in which he or she works. For new graduate students taking classes and preparing for the general examination, research duties normally require 20 hours per week or less. After two to three years, research usually becomes full-time.

Teaching Assistantships (TAs)

Some TA appointments are available during the fall and spring terms. These appointments involve teaching sections in a course or lab, tutoring, or grading homework and exams. This work requires up to about 20 hours per week in addition to any research or class work the student is doing.

Very occasionally, first year graduate students are supported by a nine-month (fall and spring) TA appointment. Although the Department cannot guarantee employment during the subsequent summer for these students, in the past virtually all have been able to find summer RA appointments in a Physics Department research group or obtain a summer externship in industry or in a national laboratory. Students who have a TA in their first year normally join a research group and are supported by an RA in subsequent years.

TA appointments are typically made after the first year. These appointments are used to encourage students who wish to hone their teaching skills, to help alleviate funding pressures on the faculty, to facilitate a student’s transition to a different research group, or to support departmental teaching needs. Each of the four divisions in the department has been assigned a guaranteed number of TA positions. In the spring, each division compiles a list of students to be funded by TA appointments in the subsequent academic year. This list is submitted to the department for approval. Thus, students who desire TA support after the first year must inform their research supervisor, who will forward this information to the Division Head. If, after the divisions have submitted their TA lists to the Department, additional TAs are needed, the Department will solicit applications from the physics graduate student population as a whole.

Fellowships

Fellowships are full time positions, unless specifically exempted by the Department Head. A student entering the Department with a fellowship has a great deal of flexibility in planning his or her graduate program and in seeking out a research group. However, the fellowship recipient is responsible for finding a research group that will provide funding upon expiration of the fellowship support. Some information on fellowships for graduate students in physics is available through Academic Programs and the Office of the Dean for Graduate Education , Room 3-134.

Switching Groups

Many students continue through from their first RA to a thesis in the same group. Others, however, elect to change research groups. An RA who does not wish to continue research in his or her group, or who simply wishes to investigate other possibilities, should not hesitate to talk to other professors about different opportunities. However, students are responsible for notifying their current supervisor of their intention to leave a group. Students are expected to work in the research group as long as it is providing funding. In order to facilitate the transition from one research group to another, each student is guaranteed one semester of transitional funding in the form of a TA. Once the decision has been made and approved to switch groups, the student should complete a Research Supervision Form (PDF) or Research Co-Supervision Form (PDF) and submit it to Academic Programs as soon as possible.

Satisfactory Progress

Satisfactory progress involves both academic and research benchmarks. These include passing both the Written and Oral portions of the General Exam on time (see the timetable under  Academic Issues ), completing the subject requirements in the specialty area, and satisfying the breadth requirement.  The Department and/or the Vice Chancellor of MIT may issue academic warnings to graduate students who maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or lower or whose unit load for any given term is below 36 units.

In addition, a student must join the research group of a supervisor who will oversee the student’s doctoral thesis research.  It is expected that a student will join a group by the end of the first year in the program.  Any student who anticipates a possible delay in this schedule should confer with his or her academic advisor; Associate Head  Lindley Winslow ; or Academic Administrator Shannon Larkin before the end of the first spring term.

Many of our graduate students continue through to a Ph.D. in the group they first enter. Others change to another group that is a better match to their interests and abilities and complete their thesis in the new group. Only a very few students have difficulty finding the correct match. Several policies have been established to protect the interests of these students, and to help them make appropriate career decisions.

A student’s first period of work with any given faculty member is considered to be a “trial period” with no obligation by either party to continue the arrangement for a subsequent term. Of course the student may decide to change groups, or request a transitional TA, at the end of any term. If so, he or she must give four weeks notice to the group leader and the Division Head. Before deciding to discontinue funding after a trial period the faculty member must discuss any issues of concern with the student. The faculty member must notify the student of his or her intention to discontinue funding at least six weeks before the term ends. In special cases where a research area has made a prior written commitment to provide a full academic year of research support for an incoming student, the area will offer an alternative second semester RA to a student whose first semester RA has been terminated.

If, in any term beyond the first with a given group, a faculty member believes a student’s performance as an RA is unsatisfactory, he or she must write a warning letter to the student explaining clearly why the performance has been unsatisfactory and stating the conditions that must be met to avoid termination of support at the end of the term. The letter should be approved in advance by the Division Head and sent to both the student and the academic advisor. In order to give the student time to make the changes justifying continued support the following dates will apply.

• Warning delivered by October 1st
• Decision made by the last day of Fall classes

Spring Term

• Warning delivered by February 15th
• Decision made by the last day of Spring classes

Summer Term

• Warning delivered by June 1st
• Decision made by August 15th

In the event that a student whose funding has been terminated is not able to secure another research position prior to the start of the next semester, the Department will guarantee one term of support in the form of a transitional TA.  If the termination of an RA occurs at the end of the spring semester and the student is unable to find other support for the summer, the Department will make an effort to find summer support for the student. The one semester transitional TA would then be available in the fall, if needed. Students have a responsibility to continue working in their research group as instructed by their research advisor as long as they are being supported.  Questions about this process should be directed to the Academic Administrator.

If differences arise between the research supervisor and the student concerning the interpretation of “unsatisfactory performance,” the problem should be brought to the attention of the student’s academic advisor, the Division Head, or the Graduate Committee. Committee members are available to discuss, in private, problems encountered by either the student or the research supervisor before formal action takes place. Additional resources are listed on the front page of the Guidelines.

Academic Issues

Degree programs.

The normal degree program in the Department leads to a Ph.D. in Physics. Direct admission to a Master’s degree program in Physics is available only in special cases (e.g., US military officers).  On occasion, a student admitted for a Ph.D. may wish to earn a non-terminal Master’s degree en route to the Ph.D., or may decide not to follow the Ph.D. program through to completion, or may fail the General Exam.  In these cases the student may be able to satisfy the requirements for the Masters degree.

Advising and Registration

Each fall and spring term students must meet with their academic advisor to complete their registration.  Meetings are not required for summer registration, but each student must still take responsibility for registering on line for an appropriate number of units, either in 8.392 (Pre-Thesis Research) or 8.THG (Thesis).

To make a subject change after registration day, students should use the Institute’s electronic add/drop process, available through  WebSIS .  After a student has electronically requested a change, the advisor must approve it and the student must then submit the approved change. To avoid late charges and the need to petition a change through the Dean for Graduate Education, students should be sure to register before the Registrar’s deadlines.  The Add date is about five weeks into the term and the Drop date is about three weeks before the last day of classes.  Pre-registration for all terms is done on-line via  WebSIS .

Each fall, all graduate students are required to turn in a “Graduate Progress Evaluation Form” designed to facilitate a beginning-of-year conversations with their Academic Advisor.  The form consists of a few basic questions on the progress the student made in the preceding year as well as goals for the coming year, and should be turned in to the Academic Administrator some time shortly after Registration Day by the student after the advisor has signed it.

Requirements for the Ph.D.

The specific requirements for the Ph.D. are:

• Joining the group of a research advisor who will supervise the doctoral thesis
• Passing the General Doctoral Examination
• Specialty Requirements: two subjects (three for NUPAT and three for NUPAX students ( effective Fall 2023 ))
• Breadth Requirements: two subjects
• Written Thesis and Oral Defense

Timetable of Progress Toward a PhD

* Students who enter in February begin their timetable as if they entered in the following fall term (i.e., first attempt at Written Exam is in the second (fall) term. If delays or postponements are needed, contact the Graduate Student Coordinator for the Thesis Proposal or the General Exams Coordinator for the General Exams. See applicable sections in these Guidelines for detailed procedures.

Choosing First Year Subjects

The Department does not require PhD students to take any subjects other than those needed to satisfy the specialty and breadth requirements described below.  However, many students begin by taking some combination of graduate Quantum Mechanics ( 8.321  and  8.322 ), graduate Electricity and Magnetism ( 8.311 ), and graduate Statistical Mechanics ( 8.333 ). Not only have these subjects been proven to give students a broad view of basic physics, but each of them (with the exception of 8.322) may be used to satisfy the related part of the Written General Exam.  As of fall 2016, a new subject, 8.309 , will be offered and can be used to satisfy the Classical Mechanics portion of the Written Exam.

First-year students concerned with the level of their undergraduate preparation are encouraged to consider taking senior-level undergraduate subjects such as Electricity and Magnetism ( 8.07 ), Statistical Mechanics ( 8.08 ) and Classical Mechanics ( 8.09 ). Some first-year students may wish to sample basic graduate subjects in specialty areas: Atomic and Optical Physics ( 8.421  or  8.422 ), Solid State Physics ( 8.511 ), Systems Biology ( 8.591J ), Plasma Physics ( 8.613J ), Introduction to Nuclear and Particle Physics ( 8.701 ), and Astrophysics ( 8.901  or  8.902 ).  These subjects may later be counted towards one’s specialty or breadth requirements. While planning their first year program, students should keep in mind that the normal subject load for those with full time RAs is two academic subjects, or about 24 units. A student with an RA will also register for Pre-Thesis Research (8.391 in the fall; 8.392 in the spring and summer terms), for 12 or more units, depending on the rest of the course load.

Further reading: Information on NUPAX Graduate Course Requirements

Requirements for the Masters Degree

Masters candidates must complete 66 units of graduate subject credit.  A thesis is required; however, an oral thesis defense is not required.  The thesis will be assigned a grade by the research supervisor in consultation with the thesis committee.

Core Requirements and Oral Exam

The General Requirements assess doctoral students’ readiness to progress through the stages of the PhD program.  While the Department believes strongly that all students admitted to the program are capable of succeeding in it, it is important for each student to demonstrate their expertise at specified points during the program.  

There are two parts to the General Doctoral Requirements:

• a set of Physics Core requirements consisting of four sections: Classical Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Quantum Mechanics, and Statistical Mechanics. Each section may be satisfied either through taking a designated course, or by passing a Written Exam that indicates whether a student already has sufficient mastery of a particular area.  These courses and exams are taken during the first two years of graduate study. Satisfying the Physics Core requirements demonstrates a student’s sufficient grasp of four basic areas of Physics which are the building blocks for future research.  The four sections of the Physics Core together constitute an important foundation required for all PhD students, regardless of the particular topic of their thesis research.
• an Oral Exam of approximately two hours.  The Oral Exam is given in the student’s area of research specialty in the second or third year of graduate study, and it is designed to assess the student’s deep understanding of central ideas in the specialty area. Passing the Oral Exam indicates the student’s readiness to move on to thesis research in the designated area.

All the courses that satisfy the Physics Core Requirements are offered annually.  The Physics Core Written Exams and the Oral Exam are each offered in both the Fall and Spring terms.

Core Requirements Information

The four courses that satisfy the Core Requirement sections are:

• Classical Mechanics ( 8.309 ) offered every spring
• Electricity and Magnetism ( 8.311 ) offered every spring
• Quantum Mechanics ( 8.321 ) offered every fall
• Statistical Mechanics ( 8.333 ) offered every fall

A student satisfies any section by completing the corresponding course with a grade of B+ or higher.

Alternatively, a student may choose to satisfy one or more sections of the Physics Core Requirements by taking an exam. The topics covered by the exam and the expected level are documented in this syllabus .  The Physics Core Written Exam is scheduled in the week prior to the start of each fall and spring term. Entering students must take the exam upon arrival. The Associate Head may approve exceptions due to extenuating circumstances such as Visa issues or the desire to take undergraduate coursework in one of the core areas.

After the first term, for any section of the Core Requirements not yet satisfied:

• the student is required to attempt all remaining sections of the next Core Written Exam;
• if there are remaining sections still to be completed at any time after the exam in the student’s first January, the student must enroll in the corresponding course the next time it is offered.

The deadline for satisfying all four sections of the Core Requirements is the end of a student’s second year.  This timeline allows a student two attempts to complete the Core Requirements by passing the corresponding courses with a B+ or better, as well as four opportunities to satisfy the requirements through the Core Written Exams (first August, first January, second August, second January).

Students experiencing unusual circumstances (e.g., serious health issues, family emergency), may request a delay of their deadline.  (See the section on Schedule Postponements in one of the accordions below.)

If a student has not passed all sections of the Physics Core Requirement by the appropriate deadline, an ad hoc committee will form to consider the student’s individual case.  This committee will report to the Associate Department Head and will consist of:

• the Faculty Graduate Program Coordinator
• the General Exam and Requirements Coordinator
• the chair of the Written Exam Committee
• the department’s Academic Administrator (ex officio)

The committee will receive input from the student’s academic and research advisors, and the student will have the opportunity to provide a written statement. The likely recommendation would be to switch the student to Master’s degree status and set a schedule for completing an SM thesis. However, in unusual cases, this committee may recommend that the student be allowed to do prescribed further study and/or to have one additional attempt to complete the outstanding section by course or exam at the next opportunity. The final decision would be made by the Associate Department Head.  No further extensions would be allowed.

Structure of the Written Exam

Note: The upcoming written exam schedule details are listed at the top of this page.

Each exam consists of two questions; the student selects one of the two questions to solve in a 75-minute period. The questions are prepared by a committee of four Physics faculty members, and are reviewed before the exam is finalized by additional faculty who are each assigned to grade one section of the exam.

There is no pre-determined or fixed percentage of students who pass, nor is there a fixed passing score. The difficulty of the examination may vary somewhat from year to year, and this is taken into account in determining the pass/fail line.

Exams with grades near the deciding line are reviewed in detail by all members of the Exam Committee and by the graders. If a student is repeating an exam, the earlier performance is also considered.

Exam results are communicated to students and their advisors individually by email in time for the results to be considered in the selection of classes for the upcoming term.

Sample Written Exams

Sample exams, with solutions, are available as study aids for the Written Exam. The current format of four 75-minutes sections was first administered in fall 2015. Prior to 2015 our Qualifying Exams were given in 3 parts: Parts I and II comprised the Written Exam, and the Oral Exam was known as Part III.

Pre-2015 sample exams labeled ‘Part II’ with the 4 sections presented as a single 5-hour exam continue to be useful for Written Exam study, if reviewed as separate 75-minute topics.

Study materials are available both below, the Physics REFS webpage, and our Physics Written Exam Study Guide .

NOTE: You may see the words “Part II” mentioned in the below PDFs. Labeling of the Written Exam was changed in 2015, when what was originally two written exams was restricted into one exam.

• Textbook Suggestions  (PDF)
• Fall 2000  (PDF)
• Spring 2001  (PDF)
• Fall 2001  (PDF)
• Spring 2002  (PDF)
• Fall 2002  (PDF)
• Fall 2012  (PDF)
• Spring 2012  (PDF)
• Fall 2015  (PDF)

Sample Written Exam Solutions

Oral Exam Information

The purpose of the oral portion of the general exam is to test students’ broad general knowledge within their field, which is the same as that of their research supervisor; only a minor portion of the exam will concern the student’s specific research topic.

The Oral Exam, taken in the second or third year, allows the student to demonstrate deep knowledge of a specialty area.

• Two attempts at the Oral Exam are allowed.
• The first attempt at the oral exam must be taken by the first term of the third year.
• If a second attempt is needed, it must be taken in the term immediately following the first attempt. (If a first, failed attempt was taken in the first term of the second year, or earlier, the student may postpone the second attempt until the beginning of the third year.)

Structure and Content of the Oral Exam

NOTE: Students planning on taking the Oral Exam in any term should file an exam application with the Academic Programs Office by September 15 for the fall term and February 15 for the spring term.

At the start of the academic year, each Division appoints one committee for each research field to examine all students in that field who will take the exam within the coming year. The oral exam committee consists of:

• the chairperson
• two other faculty members
• an alternate faculty member if the student’s research supervisor is a member of the standing exam committee

The Academic Programs Office notifies all students about the members of their committee; the student is then responsible for scheduling the exam with the committee and notifying Academic Programs of the exam day, time, and place. Exams are generally administered in the second half of the term.

The Committee Chair in each area should communicate exam expectations to the students taking the exam that term. Ideally, this should be done in a meeting of all examinees at the start of the term.

Currently, oral exam committees are formed in each of the following areas:

• Astrophysics Chair:  Claude Canizares
• Atomic and Optical Physics Chair:  Wolfgang Ketterle
• Biophysics Chair:  Jeff Gore
• Condensed Matter Experiment Chair:  Long Ju
• Condensed Matter Theory Chair:  Leonid Levitov
• Nuclear and Particle Experiment Chair:  Or Hen
• Nuclear and Particle Theory Chair:  Barton Zwiebach
• Quantum Information Chair: TBD
• Plasma Physics Chair:  Nuno Loureiro

Content of the exam:

• The first question should be in the student’s specific area. The Chair should have received this question from the supervisor and provided it to the student a week before the exam.
• The oral examination continues in the student’s general field.
• Discussion of a student’s research, when applicable, comprises no more than the final quarter of the examination.

The research supervisor may observe the exam and may provide input only if solicited by committee members. The supervisor and student will be asked to leave the examination room when the final decision is discussed. The committee should inform them of the result as soon as a decision is reached.

CMT Oral Exam FAQs

• Am I responsible for contacting the committee to schedule the exam? Yes. Send a Doodle poll to all of your committee members (usually 3 of them) to pick the time for your exam; usually towards the end of the semester works best. Suggest many days as options, and on each day, make 2-hour slots, with 1-hour increments. Once the time of the exam is agreed upon, book one of the conference rooms for the exam, and email the time and place to your committee members. Also, just in case, send them a reminder email about two days prior to the exam. Ask Graduate Coordinator Sydney Miller to send you a grade sheet for the exam, print it out, and bring it with you to the exam.
• Will there be a question given to me to prepare in advance? Who will give it to me, and when will I receive it? Yes. Ask your research advisor to give you one prepared question, which the committee will use to start the exam. He or she needs to give you this question about a week before the exam. Please email the question to the committee members as soon as you have it.
• Will I be expected to talk about my own research? No, not beyond the research question from your advisor.
• Ashcroft & Mermin, Solid State Physics
• Kittel, Introduction to Solid State Physics
• Kerson Huang, Intro to Stat Mech. …is fair game for the exam. In addition, the student will start by giving a short presentation on a question prepared by their research advisor. The committee is allowed to ask questions on that also, but only assuming the knowledge of the material covered in 1, 2, and 3 above.
• Will I receive the results of the exam immediately? What kind of feedback will I receive if I don’t pass? You will receive the results of the exam immediately. The feedback will be given either immediately, or within the few days immediately after the exam.
• Solve the advance problem (from your adviser) in a number of different ways. Make sure that you can present and discuss the simple intuitive solutions.
• Be prepared to present your solution without notes (except for the problem statement from your research advisor, which you should print out for yourself and the exam committee).
• Make sure that you listen to the questions being asked during the examination. Sometimes it helps to rephrase the question in your own words. This helps to ensure that you understand the question and it also gives you more time to prepare your response.
• After giving an answer, confirm that you have addressed the question.
• It is ok if you don’t know all of the answers. It is better to say “I don’t know” than to say something that is not true. Even better would be to say, “I don’t know the answer to that question, but I could figure it out by doing…”

NUPAT Oral Exam Info

Nuclear and Particle Theory (NUPAT) students, like all students in the Physics Department, are required to pass an oral examination in their sub-field.The first attempt at the oral exam must be taken by the end of the first term of the third year. Two attempts are permitted, with the second attempt scheduled in the subsequent term. If the subsequent term precedes the third year, a student may postpone the second attempt until the beginning of the third year.

The exam is administered by the Oral Exam Committee, composed of three faculty members. Should the student’s research advisor be a member of that committee, another faculty member will be substituted in place of the advisor.

The exams are scheduled at the beginning of the Fall or Spring term and will take place in December and May, respectively. The NUPAT oral exam consists of two parts:

• A short exposition on a question or topic assigned to the student by the Head of the Oral Committee no later than two weeks before the exam.
• A set of questions on theoretical nuclear and particle physics posed by the committee.

Passing of the exam will depend on the student’s performance in the assigned question, as well as his or her proficiency in theoretical nuclear physics and theoretical particle physics . The topics and questions are drawn primarily from material covered in NUPAT graduate classes, with emphasis on 8.325 and Field Theory of the Standard Model. If you have a question about whether some particular material should be studied for the exam, then you should ask the current head of the NUPAT Oral Exam committee.

The exam is most often 120 minutes in duration and results are communicated to the student at the completion of the exam.

Furthermore, please note that more senior CTP students have a list of suggested books, material, and a shared Dropbox with previous questions that is helpful for studying. Additional suggestions:

• Students are encouraged to form study groups for the oral exam. It is an excellent way to learn.
• Students should talk to more senior graduate students about what the exam has covered in past years, and consult the above-mentioned documents.
• Talk to your committee before taking your exam to discuss your topic and any suggested material.
• Ask faculty if you have questions. If they have time, they are always happy to help.

Find more info on CTP Guidelines for Graduate Students .

NUPAX Oral Exam Info

NUPAX students, like all students in the Physics Department, are required to pass an oral examination in their subfield. The first attempt at the oral exam must be taken by the first term of the third year. Two attempts are permitted with the second attempt, if necessary, scheduled in the subsequent term. (If the subsequent term precedes the third year, a student may postpone the second attempt until the beginning of the third year.) The exam is administered by three faculty members who are members of the oral exam committee. Should the student’s research advisor be already a member of that committee, another faculty member will be substituted in place of the advisor.

The exams are scheduled at the beginning of the fall or spring term. The NUPAX oral exam consists of three parts: (a) a question prepared in advance based on a relevant topic in nuclear and particle physics, (b) a portion focusing on the student’s current research program, and (c) a broad set of questions in nuclear and particle physics. Passing of the exam will depend on the student’s performance in the assigned question, as well as their proficiency in nuclear physics , particle physic s, and detectors and experimental techniques . The topics and questions are drawn primarily from material covered in the NUPAX required graduate classes ( 8.701 , 8.711 , and 8.811 ).

The exam is a total of 90 minutes in duration and results are communicated to the student at the completion of the exam. Students should expect to devote between four and six weeks (integrated) in preparation of the oral exam.

QIS Oral Exam Info

Quantum Information (QI) students, like all students in the Physics Department, are required to pass an oral examination in their sub-field.The first attempt at the oral exam must be taken by the end of the first term of the third year. Two attempts are permitted, with the second attempt scheduled in the subsequent term. If the subsequent term precedes the third year, a student may postpone the second attempt until the beginning of the third year.

The exams are scheduled at the beginning of the Fall or Spring term and will take place in December and May, respectively. The QI oral exam consists of two parts:

• A set of questions on quantum computing and quantum information posed by the committee.

Passing of the exam will depend on the student’s performance in the assigned question, as well as his or her proficiency in quantum computing and quantum information. The topics and questions are drawn primarily from material covered in the textbook by Nielsen and Chuang.

The exam is up to 120 minutes in duration and results are communicated to the student at the completion of the exam. Additional suggestions for preparation:

• Students are encouraged to form study groups for the oral exam. During these groups, take turns acting as examiners and coming up with questions. It is an excellent way to study.
• Students should talk to more senior graduate students about what the exam has covered in past years.

Scheduling Postponements

Postponements for completing any part of the General Doctoral Requirements can be granted if a student is experiencing unusual circumstances. Requests for postponement of the Physics Core Requirement must be submitted at least one month prior to the start of the next term in which a Written Exam or corresponding course would be required. Requests for postponement of the Oral Exam must be submitted by September 30th for the fall term and by February 28th for the spring term. Any request for postponement must be made in writing (e-mail is acceptable) to the research supervisor. The request must include a clear justification. The research supervisor will add comments and forward the request to the General Examination and Requirements Coordinator. A student with no research supervisor should submit the request through his or her academic advisor. Appeals should be addressed to the Associate Department Head, who will consult with appropriate faculty members when reviewing the case.

Specialty and Breadth Subject Requirements

Specialty subjects.

Students are required to take two basic one-semester subjects in their research specialty (three in NUPAT and three in NUPAX ( effective Fall 2023 )).  These subjects are central to the research area and it is advantageous to complete them as early as possible.  The specialty subjects in the various fields are listed below and each must be passed with a “B-” or better.  Substituting for any of the following subjects requires a request in writing (or e-mail) to the appropriate Division Head.  After commenting, the Division Head will forward the request to the General Examination and Requirements Coordinator who will send notification of the decision.

ASTROPHYSICS 8.901, 8.902 Astrophysics I, II ATOMIC AND OPTICAL PHYSICS 8.421, 8.422 Atomic and Optical Physics I, II BIOPHYSICS 8.591 Systems Biology and one of the following: — 8.592 Statistical Physics in Biology — 8.593 Biological Physics CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS 8.511, 8.512 Theory of Solids I, II EXPERIMENTAL NUCLEAR AND PARTICLE 8.701 Intro to Nuclear and Particle Physics * Effective Fall 2023 8.711 Nuclear Physics 8.811 Particle Physics PLASMA PHYSICS 8.613J, 8.614J Introduction to Plasma Physics I, II

QUANTUM INFORMATION 8.371 Quantum Information Science and one of the following: — 8.322 Quantum Theory II — 8.323 Relativistic Quantum Field Theory I — 8.421 Atomic and Optical Physics I — 8.422 Atomic and Optical Physics II — 8.511 Theory of Solids I — 8.512 Theory of Solids II — 8.372 Quantum Information Science III THEORETICAL NUCLEAR AND PARTICLE 8.325 Relativistic Quantum Field Theory III and, as appropriate, two of the following — 8.334 Statistical Mechanics II — 8.962 General Relativity — 8.952 Particle Physics of the Early Universe — 8.821 String Theory — 8.831J Supersymmetric Quantum Field Theories — 8.841 Electroweak Interactions — 8.851 Effective Field Theory — 8.701 Intro to Nuclear and Particle Physics

Breadth Subjects Requirement Update

— as of august 4, 2023 —.

This applies to students entering in Fall 2023.  Students who started before Fall 2023 may follow this requirement or the old one listed in the accordion below.

To enrich knowledge about physics outside of one’s own research field, students must complete two breadth requirement subjects.  At least one of these must be from the list below.  Both must be passed with a grade of B- or better.

There are two types of breadth courses: primary breadths and secondary breadths. A student may satisfy the graduate breadth requirement by taking either: two primary breadth courses or one primary breadth course and one secondary breadth course. If two primary breadth courses are used to satisfy the requirement those must be from two different areas. A course cannot satisfy both the breadth and specialty requirement, so breadth courses cannot be from the student’s own area. A student’s area is determined by the Oral Exam they plan to take.

Primary Breadth Courses  

• 8.370 – Quantum Computation
• 8.371 – Quantum Information Science
• 8.372 – Quantum Information Science III
• 8.421 – Atomic and Optical Physics I
• 8.422 – Atomic and Optical Physics II
• 8.511 – Theory of Solids I
• 8.512 – Theory of Solids II
• 8.591 – Systems Biology
• 8.592 – Statistical Physics in Biology
• 8.613J – Introduction to Plasma Physics I
• 8.701 – Introduction to Nuclear and Particle Physics
• 8.711 – Nuclear Physics
• 8.811 – Particle Physics
• 8.821 – String Theory
• 8.901 – Astrophysics I
• 8.902 – Astrophysics II
• 8.942 – Cosmology

Secondary Breadth Courses

• 8.316 – Data Science in Physics
• 8.323 – Relativistic Quantum Field Theory I
• 8.324 – Relativistic Quantum Field Theory II
• 8.325 – Relativistic Quantum Field Theory III
• 8.962 – General Relativity
• Graduate Courses cross-listed with physics.

(The detailed table by area is here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4lrdq61hrg5l7pmfauk82/breadth_update-20230801.pdf?rlkey=uxfuo413cufzitp3m2oitzz04&dl=0 )

Internships

An internship can be used as a secondary breadth.  Internships need to be arranged ~6 months in advance in coordination with the department and the research advisor.  Internships may be scheduled during either summer or academic terms and the student will need to register for the correct units.

Harvard Courses

The Harvard equivalent of the above courses can be substituted. QFT is the most common case of this. Please confirm with the department that the Harvard course has the correct curriculum to substitute for the MIT course.

Substitutions

The current breadth requirement was crafted with care. If you believe a course should be part of the breadth requirement, the instructor will need to go through the procedure for the course to be cross-listed with physics.

NOTE: In a situation where it is not clear whether a subject qualifies as breadth or not, the linked table by area should be considered final policy.

Breadth Subject Requirements (pre Fall 2023)

To enrich knowledge about physics outside of one’s own research field, students must complete two breadth requirement subjects.  At least one of these must be from the list below.  Both must be passed with a grade of B- or better.

If only one breadth requirement is taken from this list, students may request approval of a second course that is not on the list if it genuinely satisfies the two stated objectives of the breadth requirement: 1) learning about physics and 2) being outside the student’s research field.

To request approval for a course, a student should write a short but clear email or letter explaining why the course satisfies these two objectives.  If the course is in another department, the message should tersely explain on the basis of the course description or curriculum, why it should be considered learning about physics. The student should also succinctly state his or her research specialty and thesis topic, and explain why the course should be considered as being outside this research area. A short paragraph is sufficient to convey the necessary information. Physics graduate students may wish to arrange an internship in an industrial or national laboratory at some time during their graduate career.  Internships may be scheduled during either summer or academic terms and can be used, with approval of the student’s academic advisor, to satisfy one of the Departmental breadth requirements, even if the internship is in the student’s research field; internships may not be used to satisfy the specialty requirement.  The Department recognizes that the demands of MIT research may make it difficult for students to consider this opportunity, but it also believes that the benefits can outweigh the possible conflicts. Students seeking internships should discuss the issue with their research supervisor and schedule the internship to minimize disruption of research. 

The student should send the request to his or her academic advisor and, if necessary, discuss and modify the content to obtain the advisor’s approval.  The advisor should then forward the request, with his or her approval, to the General Examination and Requirements Coordinator who will send notification of the decision.

Most graduate students are supported by Research Assistantships.  RAs become involved in a research project as soon as they begin their assistantship, and this often leads to a thesis topic.  TAs and Fellows should look for a research group during the first year.  Prior to thesis research, students get academic credit for their research by registering for Pre-Thesis Research ( 8.391  or  8.392 ), which is generally taken every semester that research is conducted until thesis research formally commences.  Starting with the semester  after a student passes the oral exam , registration changes from Pre-Thesis Research to Thesis ( 8.THG ). While many students stay with their first research group, some register for Pre-Thesis Research in two or more research areas before finding a research topic suitable for a thesis.  Pre-Thesis Research is graded on a Pass/Fail basis.

All graduate students conduct research that eventually leads to a thesis, but there are many different paths to gaining a research project.  Students are expected to register for thesis and be assigned a thesis committee by the first term of their fourth year of graduate school (see Thesis section below).

Research Supervision

Any person who holds a Faculty or Senior Research Scientist appointment in the Physics Department may serve as a research supervisor.  Under special circumstances, a faculty member outside the Department may supervise a student (this includes other MIT departments or Physics Departments at other institutions).  Prior to embarking on a research project with an outside supervisor, the student must obtain a Departmental co-supervisor.  In consultation with the research supervisor, the student should find a Faculty member in the Physics Department who agrees to be the co-supervisor. The co-supervisor will maintain close contact with the research as it progresses and must ultimately co-sign the thesis.  The student should submit a  Research Co-Supervision Form (PDF), which requires the signatures of the research supervisor and co-supervisor.  This form must be submitted to Academic Programs.  No funding will be administered by the Department of Physics until this form is submitted.

Research Internship

Physics graduate students may wish to arrange an internship in an industrial or national laboratory at some time during their graduate career.  Internships may be scheduled during either summer or academic terms and can be used, with approval of the student’s academic advisor, to satisfy one of the Departmental breadth requirements, even if the internship is in the student’s research field; internships may not be used to satisfy the specialty requirement.  The Department recognizes that the demands of MIT research may make it difficult for students to consider this opportunity, but it also believes that the benefits can outweigh the possible conflicts. Students seeking internships should discuss the issue with their research supervisor and schedule the internship to minimize disruption of research. 

Ph.D. Thesis

Schedule of upcoming physics PhD Thesis Defenses . If you are defending this term and do not see your information listed, please contact Sydney Miller .

Students must register for thesis and be assigned a thesis committee no later than the first term of their fourth year of graduate school.  It is strongly recommended that students register for thesis in a term earlier than this final deadline.  The first step is for the student and research supervisor to agree on a thesis topic. An initial  Graduate Thesis Proposal Form (PDF) must be submitted to Academic Programs by the second week of the term.  The form requires an initial thesis title, the name and signature of the research supervisor and the name of one reader for the thesis committee agreed upon by the student and supervisor. The student should register for 8.THG (reminder: the minimum number of combined units for all subjects in any particular semester should equal 36) beginning with the term the Proposal Form is submitted.  A third reader from the Physics faculty, who is not in the same research area, but whose interests, background, or special knowledge make him or her an appropriate member of the committee, will be assigned by the Graduate Student Coordinator.  Thus, in general, a thesis committee has three members (supervisor, selected reader, assigned reader).  If there is also a co-supervisor (see above), the thesis committee will consist of four people.  When the departmentally-assigned reader has been selected, it is the student’s responsibility to convene an initial thesis committee meeting no later than four weeks before the last day of classes.

At that meeting the student makes an oral presentation to the thesis committee of a detailed proposal for a research program that would subsequently become the Ph.D. thesis. The student should demonstrate a thorough knowledge of relevant literature, explain the significance of the research to progress in the field, and present a well-thought-out program of research, including contingency plans. After that meeting, and based on the discussion, the student will develop a written proposal consisting of a one- or two-page description of the body of work that is to comprise the thesis.  This proposal is submitted to Academic Programs, approximately two weeks before the end of the term (a specific date will be determined each semester).

Subsequent changes in title, scope, supervisor(s), or readers may be made with the written approval of the Graduate Student Coordinator.

In some cases, the thesis research may be in a borderline field between physics and some other field of science or engineering.  In these cases, a joint committee, including members of another department may be formed.  This requires approval by the  Dean for Graduate Education .

Students who have not registered for thesis research or submitted a thesis proposal by the first term of their fourth year must provide the Graduate Student Coordinator a written explanation of the circumstances leading to the delay.  This procedure must be followed in any subsequent term the student is still not registered for thesis.  Graduate appointments will be renewed only for students who meet the thesis registration and proposal requirements unless the Graduate Student Coordinator approves an extension based on the circumstances described in the student’s communications.

After the initial oral presentation to the thesis committee, each student must make at least one substantial oral presentation of progress to the thesis committee every 12 months.  The scheduling of this presentation is arranged by the student.

Master’s Thesis

Students pursuing a Master’s degree are required to submit a written thesis.  No oral defense is necessary.  When work on the thesis commences, each student must submit a  Master’s Thesis Proposal Form (PDF) with the proposed title of the thesis and the signature of the research supervisor to Academic Programs, 4-315.  The student should begin registering for 8.THG immediately.  A second reader will be assigned by the Graduate Student Coordinator and the student will be subsequently notified.  Upon completion of the thesis, the research supervisor will submit a letter grade for the work to Academic Programs.

MIT Degree List

A student may be recommended for his or her degree in any term.  A student must submit an  Application for Advanced Degree  at the beginning of the term in which he or she plans to graduate, and  must be registered in residence during that term .  Only the names on the degree list will be considered for degrees for that term.  Those on the September and February degree lists may participate in commencement the following June. Reminder: as an advanced degree candidate, a student should register for thesis as long as he or she is doing thesis research,   including the summer terms.  No specified number of research units is required, although the combined number of registered units each term should not be fewer than 36.

Thesis Oral Defense

The thesis defense is primarily an oral presentation of the thesis research.  In order that suggestions for revision from the thesis committee can be incorporated into the final version of your thesis, the defense should take place at least three weeks before the date posted by the Institute for approval of degrees by academic departments. This oral presentation is based on an acceptable written draft of the thesis, which is provided to the thesis committee at least two weeks prior to the defense.  What constitutes an acceptable draft should be discussed carefully with the thesis committee.  The student is responsible for scheduling the thesis defense and arranging for the room in which it is to be held.  The student should then notify the Graduate Assistant in Academic Programs of the day, time, and place of the defense; the Graduate Assistant will send notice to the Physics community, including to all faculty members.  The defense is public and all members of the MIT community may attend.  Immediately following the public presentation there will be a mandatory private session involving only the student and the thesis committee.

Thesis Copies

After passing the thesis defense and incorporating the suggested changes, students must submit to Academic Programs:

• two original copies on thesis archival paper with original signatures and
• the completed form from the  Specifications for Thesis Preparation , with an abstract and title page attached.

Details of the required thesis, abstract, and title page formats are provided in  Specifications for Thesis Preparation . Care should be taken to follow the presented format.  The student should determine whether or not the supervisor, fellowship sponsor, etc. require additional copies.  For advanced degrees submitted to the Physics Department, copyright is usually granted to MIT instead of retained by the student. The “Chairman” signature line on the thesis cover page should be that of Professor  Lindley Winslow , Associate Department Head.  This signature is obtained by the Academic Programs Office after the student submits the thesis.

Students should also be aware that a thesis archival fee will be charged to their student account.  The Institute requires that this, and all outstanding charges, be paid before the final degree is approved.

Career Counseling

Although the MIT Physics graduate program is primarily focused on training students for careers in physics research, the pursuit of an advanced degree in physics is an excellent preparation for a variety of careers, both in physics and in other fields.  If you have questions, or if you need someone to talk to about your career, there are many people available and willing to help.  Every incoming student is assigned an academic advisor with whom they can discuss their course schedule and professional plans.  Students in research groups have excellent resources in their research supervisor and other graduate students, and teaching assistants can talk to the professors for whom they are teaching.  Students can also get advice from their course instructors. The MIT Career Advising and Professional Development (CAPD, E17-294) has a variety of resources for graduate students.  Finally, the Physics Department sponsors occasional lectures and presentations by alumni in non-academic fields, and also maintains a mail list,  [email protected] , to which employment opportunities of interest to physics graduate students are posted on a regular basis.

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Thesis Preparation & Submission

The following information is provided to assist Chemistry graduate students as they prepare for degree completion. If graduate students have any questions that are not answered by this guide, they should email the Chemistry Education Office (questions about department policies) or MIT Libraries (for questions about thesis formatting, etc.)

Degree candidates must fill out the Degree Application via WebSIS at the start of the term. Important dates and deadlines (including late fees) for the upcoming academic year are listed below.  It is strongly advised that degree candidates apply for the degree list even if there is uncertainty about completing the thesis defense and submission by the  deadline, as there are no penalties for being removed from the degree list.

Students must successfully complete the thesis defense before submitting their final, signed thesis.

**Please note that the Specifications for Thesis Preparation were updated in November 2022. Please make sure you use these new guidelines.**

Important Dates & Deadlines

September 2024 degree list.

• Degree Application Deadline: June 14, 2024 ($50 late fee if submitted after this date, $85 late fee if submitted after July 21, 2024)
• Thesis Title Deadline:July 19, 2024 ($85 late fee if submitted after this date. If your thesis title is not finalized by this date, please enter your current working title and the final title can be updated later)
• Thesis Submission Deadline: August 16, 2024
• Last day of work in the lab: on or before August 31, 2024. If you plan to end your RA appointment earlier than August 31st, please contact Jennifer to review your timeline.
• Your degree will officially be conferred by MIT on September 18, 2024
• Information about the MIT Health Plan and graduation will be available online here.

February 2025 Degree List

• Degree Application Deadline: September 6, 2024 ($50 late fee if submitted after this date, $85 late fee if submitted after December 13, 2024)
• Thesis Title Deadline: December 13, 2024 ($85 late fee if submitted after this date. If your thesis title is not finalized by this date, please enter your current working title and the final title can be updated later)
• Thesis Submission Deadline: January 17, 2025
• Last day of work in the lab: on or before January 15, 2025. If you plan to end your RA appointment earlier than January 15th, please contact Jennifer to review your timeline.
• Your degree will officially be conferred by MIT on February 19, 2025

May 2025 Degree List

• Degree Application Deadline:February 7, 2025 ($50 late fee if submitted after this date, $85 late fee if submitted after April 11, 2025)
• Thesis Title Deadline: April 11, 2025 ($85 late fee if submitted after this date. If your thesis title is not finalized by this date, please enter your current working title and the final title can be updated later)
• Thesis Submission Deadline: May 9, 2025
• Last day of work in the lab: on or before May 28, 2025. If you plan to end your RA appointment earlier than May 28th, please contact Jennifer to review your timeline.
• Your degree will officially be conferred by MIT on May 29, 2025

Scheduling your Thesis Defense

All PhD candidates must have a Thesis Defense. As soon as your defense is finalized, please email the Chemistry Education Office with the date, time, location, and thesis title . Thesis defenses are strongly encouraged to be in-person.  If there are questions or concerns about an in-person defense, please reach out to Jennifer Weisman. When thesis defenses are on campus, we recommend reserving a room once the defense date is finalized, student can reserve department rooms through the online scheduling system or request a classroom via this form .

Degree candidates should provide their advisor with a copy of the thesis at least two weeks before the defense and provide their thesis committee chair and member with a copy at least one week before the defense. However, degree candidates should talk with their advisor, committee chair, and committee member to find out if they need the thesis further in advance or if there are preferred formats. Degree candidates should allow time in between their thesis defense and the submission deadline to make edits and submit the final copies.

Please note that most receiving a PhD degree are required to present a seminar as part of the thesis defense. This seminar is open to the department. The degree candidate is responsible for providing the Chemistry Education Office with information about their thesis defense at least two weeks ahead of time. Following the seminar, the candidate will meet privately with the thesis committee.

Thesis Formatting

The Institute has very specific requirements for thesis preparation, which were updated in November 2022. Specifications for Thesis Preparation is available on the library’s website and should be read very carefully. The MIT Thesis FAQ may answer additional questions and a helpful checklist is also provided. The specifications also include information about copyright and use of previously published material in a thesis . Do  not  rely on any templates or prior theses from your research group – they may not reflect the most current guidelines. We have highlighted some especially important points below.

Font & Spacing

Title page & committee signature page.

• The title page of the first copy will be digitally signed by the author, advisor, and Professor Adam Willard. The title page should contain the title, name of the author, previous degrees, the degree(s) to be awarded at MIT, the date the degree(s) will be conferred (May, September, or February only), copyright notice, and appropriate names and signatures. Degrees are awarded in Chemistry, regardless of your specific research area. Regardless of when you defend or submit your thesis, the date of degree conferral must be May/June, September, or February.
• As noted above, the title page will be signed by you, your advisor, and Professor Willard. You do not need to have Professor Willard digitally sign the thesis before you submit it, we will arrange to have him sign it. If your advisor has a title (ex., Firmenich Professor of Chemistry) it should also be included under their name. If you are not sure if they have a title, you can consult the Faculty Directory . Professor Willard should have the following listed under his name, on two separate lines: Professor of Chemistry; Graduate Officer
• Each student should place the appropriate copyright notice on the thesis title page. Copyright notice consists of four elements: the symbol “c” with a circle around it © and/or the word “copyright”; the year of publication (the year in which the degree is to be awarded); the name of the copyright owner; the words “All rights reserved” or your chosen Creative Commons license. All theses should have the following legend statement exactly: The author hereby grants to MIT a nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to exercise any and all rights under copyright, including to reproduce, preserve, distribute and publicly display copies of the thesis, or release the thesis under an open-access license. Please carefully review the copyright information to determine the appropriate copyright ownership.
• The date under Signature of Author should be the date the final thesis is signed and submitted to the department.
• The title page is always considered to be page 1, and every page must be included in the count regardless of whether a number would be physically printed on a page. We recommend that you do not include the page number on the title page.
• There is also a signature page that will be digitally signed by your entire thesis committee. Your advisor will digitally sign your thesis twice, on the title page and signature page. The signature page is right after the title page.
• More details about digital signatures are provided below.

Table of Contents

Final thesis submission, general submission process.

Please carefully review the details below, including the file naming format . There are two steps to the final submissions process:

1. Submit the following documents to the Department of Chemistry:

• An electronic copy of your thesis in PDF/A-1 format (with no signatures)
• A PDF of the digitally signed title page and committee signature page (using DocuSign to obtain signatures)

Please send an email to your advisor, Jennifer Weisman, and Rebecca Drake, which includes the 2 PDFs above and the following text:

“Dear Professor/Dr X: Attached is the final version of my thesis. Please use reply-all to this message to indicate your acceptance of my thesis document and your recommendation for certification by my department.”

**Note: if your thesis document is too large to send via email, your email can include a link to access the document via Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.**

2. Submit your thesis information to MIT Libraries here . Choose to opt-in or opt-out of ProQuest license and publication.  Include the same copyright and license information that is on your thesis title page. Note: this does not involve submitting your actual thesis.

Details for Thesis Submission Process

• After the defense, the student and thesis committee reach agreement on the final thesis document.
• Students should follow the format specifications as stated in the Specifications for Thesis Preparation . Do not print or physically sign pages.
• Students will have the thesis signed electronically through DocuSign. This process is described in detail in the section below.
• The title page is always considered to be page 1, and every page must be included in the count regardless of whether a number is physically printed on a page. The entire thesis (including title page, prefatory material, illustrations, and all text and appendices) must be paginated in one consecutive numbering sequence. Your committee signature page should be page 2. Please see the  Sample Title Page and committee signature page for reference.
• You will still include the title page and committee signature page in the full thesis PDF, they just won’t have any signatures.
• The digitally signed title page and committee signature pages should be in one PDF, separate from the thesis document. This avoids a DocuSign tag at the top of each page of the full thesis. Please use the following naming convention: authorLastName-kerb-degree-dept-year-sig.pdf (ex., montgomery-mssimon-phd-chemistry-2021-sig.pdf).
• Students should save their final thesis document as a PDF using the following file naming convention: authorLastName-kerb-degree-dept-year-thesis .pdf (ex., montgomery-mssimon-phd-chemistry-2021-thesis.pdf).
• Students should not deposit the PDF of their thesis via the Libraries Library’s voluntary submission portal.
• Please send an email to your advisor, Jennifer, and William which includes the final thesis document and file with the digitally signed title/committee signature pages with the following text:

Please also complete the MIT Doctoral Student Exit Survey and your Laboratory Safety Clearance Form .

Digital Signatures

Please see here for a full guide (with screenshots) to using DocuSign to obtain digital signatures

Required Signatures:

These should be everyone’s uploaded digital signatures in their own handwriting, not one of the pre-formatted signatures created by DocuSign.

• Your signature on the thesis title page
• Your advisor’s signature on both the title page and committee signature page
• Your thesis committee chair’s and member’s signatures on the committee signature page
• You do not need to have Adam Willard sign your title page, the Chemistry Education Office will take care of that
• Full thesis with no signatures (including unsigned title page and thesis committee signature page)
• Title page and committee signature page with signatures via DocuSign

Accessing DocuSign

Thesis Hold Requests

Details about requesting a thesis hold are available here and the requests are made to different offices based on the type of request.

Written notification of patent holds and other restrictions must reach the Institute Archives before the thesis in question is received, as under normal circumstances, all theses are open and available for public inspection once they have been received by the Institute Archives.

Graduate Student Exit Interviews

In order to best serve the educational, scientific, and social needs of graduate students in the Chemistry Department, it is critically important that Departmental leadership be appropriately informed of issues of importance to graduate students, ideally on an ongoing basis. Graduate student exit interviews provide information that alert the Department to acute issues that affect graduate students and provide data for longitudinal assessments of graduate student experience within the program.Graduate exit interviews are administered to all graduate students departing the Chemistry Department. The exit interview applies equally to graduate students departing with completed degrees (Ph.D. and M.S.) and without degrees.

• Graduating students will be sent a list of interview questions by the Chemistry Education Office when the student joins the degree list. Instructions about scheduling a time for the in-person or virtual discussion will be included with other informational correspondence from the Chemistry Education Office regarding degree completion. Graduating students will perform their exit interview after the thesis defense so as to avoid making the interview an additional burden.
• For students departing the program without a degree, the interview questions and instructions for scheduling an in-person discussion will be sent by the Chemistry Education Office at the point in time that a date for termination of their appointment in Chemistry is determined.
• For the majority of departing students, this interview coincides with the end of the semester, but a rolling schedule of surveys is anticipated.

Postdoctoral/Research Specialist Appointments

If you plan to transition to a postdoctoral/research specialist appointment within the Department of Chemistry at MIT, please contact Jennifer Weisman and  Chemistry HR as soon as possible. If you are an international student, it is extremely important that you start this process early to allow sufficient timing for visa processing. In addition to talking with Jennifer and HR, please consult with the International Students Office .Your final signed thesis must be submitted before a postdoc appointment can start. IMPORTANT: If you need to enroll in the MIT employee health plan, then your appointment will need to last at least 90 days in order for you to remain benefits eligible. If your appointment were to last less than 90 days, MIT will retroactively cancel your health insurance, and any medical expenses you have during this time will be rebilled to you.

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Doctoral Degree and Requirements

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The doctoral program in DMSE provides an advanced educational experience that is versatile, intellectually challenging, and of enduring value for high-level careers in materials science and engineering. It develops students’ ability, confidence, and originality to grasp and solve challenging problems involving materials.

Required Subjects

The core courses define the basis of materials science and engineering as a discipline—what every PhD materials scientist or materials engineer from MIT ought to know. The first-year student seminars and core subjects provide a rigorous, unified foundation for subsequent advanced-level subjects and thesis research. Here are the required subjects:

• 3.20 (Materials at Equilibrium) (15 units, Year 1, fall)
• 3.22 (Structure and Mechanics of Materials) (12 units, Year 1, fall)
• 3.201 (Introduction to DMSE) (3 units, Year 1, fall)
• 3.21 (Kinetic Processes in Materials) (15 units, Year 1, spring)
• 3.23 (Electrical, Optical, and Magnetic Properties of Materials) (12 units, Year 1, spring)
• 3.202 (Essential Research Skills) (3 units, Year 1, spring)
• 3.995 (First-Year Thesis Research) (18 units, Year 1, spring)

English Evaluation Test

International graduate students may be required to take the MIT English Evaluation Test upon arrival in the fall semester. Results from the test will indicate whether the student will be required to take an English class at MIT. Some students may qualify for a waiver of the English Evaluation Test:

• Students who studied at a US university or an international university whose primary language of instruction is English for at least three years and received a degree from that US/international university.
• Students whose language of instruction was English during primary and secondary school years.

The DMSE Graduate Academic Office informs incoming students by early summer if they qualify for this waiver.

Electives and Concentrations

Doctoral students must take three post-core graduate electives approved by the thesis committee. Refer to the MIT Subjects Listings and Schedule for the subjects offered and their schedules.

Graduate students can use the three electives to create a specialization or concentration in a particular research area of materials science and engineering, or they can choose a broader educational experience by picking subjects in three different areas.

Sample Concentration Areas

Students who choose a concentration area have several options. Below is a list of sample concentrations available.

• Electronic, magnetic, and photonic materials
• High-performance structural materials
• Computational materials science
• Biomaterials
• Polymeric materials
• Materials for energy and the environment
• Nanoscale materials
• Materials processing materials economics and manufacturing, entrepreneurship
• Laboratory/characterization/instrumentation
• Materials design
• Experimental/characterization computational materials application/design

Electives Outside the Department

Students may enroll in one non-DMSE graduate elective that is 9-12 units with the approval of their thesis committee. Students may propose to enroll in two or more non-DMSE graduate electives by submitting a petition to the Departmental Committee on Graduate Studies (DCGS). Submit the petition form in advance of enrolling in the subjects to the DMSE Graduate Academic Office for committee review, including a statement on why you would like to enroll in these subjects, your signature, and your thesis advisor’s signature.

• Download the Graduate Student Petition (pdf) and complete it.
• Send the completed petition to [email protected] .

The minor requirement is designed to encourage the development of intellectual breadth at an advanced level. A program of study must be discussed with and approved by a student’s research supervisor, so it should be proposed early in a student’s doctoral program.

DMSE Doctoral Track Students

There are two minor requirement options for DMSE graduate students on the doctoral track.

Academic Minor

Here are some general guidelines regarding an academic minor.

• The selected subjects may or may not be related to the thesis research area.
• The subjects taken must be at an advanced level. It is recommended that two graduate-level courses be taken (24 units).
• Minor programs composed of one graduate level and one advanced undergraduate-level course (24 units), or three advanced undergraduate courses (33 units) that were not used to obtain a bachelors or master’s degree may also be acceptable. An exception is a minor in a beginning Global Languages sequence in which two 9-unit G subjects would most likely be approved.

Teaching Minor

Only DMSE doctoral track students who have passed their doctoral examinations may submit a teaching minor program proposal. Students generally begin a teaching minor in Year 3 of graduate study. Here are some general guidelines:

• Students must serve as a teaching intern for two semesters. They are designated teaching interns during the semesters in which they are earning academic credit toward the teaching minor requirement.
• Students must earn 24 units of academic credit for 3.691-3.699 (Teaching Materials Science and Engineering).
• Students must take 3.69 (Teaching Fellows Seminar) while serving as a teaching intern. The subject is offered each fall semester and provides instruction on how to teach lectures and recitations; how to prepare a syllabus, writing assignments and examinations; grading; and how to resolve complaints.

Students must submit a form outlining the proposed minor program to the DCGS Chair for approval.

• Attach copies of the catalog descriptions of all subjects included in the program proposal form.
• List the subjects to be taken to fulfill the minor requirement.
• Preview the Minor Program Proposal (pdf) and prepare your responses. Then click the button below, add the responses, and submit the proposal via DocuSign.

DMSE Program in Polymers and Soft Matter (PPSM) Doctoral Track Students

To complete the minor requirement, PPSM students must do the following:

• Take 3.20 (Materials at Equilibrium) and 3.21 (Kinetic Processes in Materials).
• Take one other graduate subject of at least 9 units that is not related to polymeric materials for academic credit.
• List the subjects to be taken to fulfill the minor requirement and submit the proposal. The written request will need to have the catalogue description of the third subject.
• Preview the Minor Program Proposal (pdf) and prepare your responses. Then click the button below, add your responses, and send the proposal via DocuSign.

Qualifying Exams

MIT requires that all doctoral students successfully complete written and oral evaluations to qualify as a candidate for the doctoral degree. The DMSE qualifying exams consist of two-step procedure.

Core Curriculum Assessment and First-Year Research Progress

In the first two semesters of the graduate program, doctoral track students enroll in the four core subjects:

• 3.20 (Materials at Equilibrium)
• 3.21 (Kinetic Processes in Materials)
• 3.22 (Structure and Mechanical Properties of Materials)
• 3.23 (Electrical, Optical, and Magnetic Properties of Materials)
• 3.201 (Introduction to DMSE)
• 3.202 (Essential Research Skills)

Students must also demonstrate satisfactory performance in research, including the selection of a research group in the fall term and receive a “J” grade in 3.995 (First-Year Thesis Research) in spring term.

First-Year Performance Evaluation

DCGS evaluates first-year performance on a Pass/No Pass basis:

The student has successfully completed the first-year requirements and is eligible to register for step two of the qualifying procedure, the Thesis Area Examination.

The student has not fully completed the first-year requirements and is not eligible to register for the Thesis Area Examination without DCGS approval. In situations in which students complete only some of the requirements, DCGS will consult with the student’s advisor and the instructors of the core classes to develop a remediation plan (for example, retaking a course). If a student’s overall GPA is below 3.5 or the student earns more than one grade of C or lower in the core classes, the student will receive an official academic progress warning letter from the Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate and Graduate Education, in addition to a DCGS remediation plan.

Thesis Area Examination

After completing the core curriculum and review of first-year research progress, students select a research project for their PhD thesis. Selection of this topic is a decision made in agreement with their advisor. The TAE tests the student’s preparedness to conduct PhD research and provides feedback on the chosen PhD thesis project.

• The TAE consists of a written proposal and an oral presentation of the proposed research to the student’s TAE Committee. The written proposal is due in mid-January before the oral examination.
• TAE oral examinations are administered during the first two weeks in the spring term of Year 2. The DMSE Graduate Academic Office schedules the TAE oral examination after confirmation of the TAE Committee with DCGS.

Preparation for the TAE requires that a student work through aspects of a successful research proposal, including motivation, context, hypothesis, work plans, methods, expected results, and impact. A working understanding of relevant concepts from materials science and engineering core knowledge should be demonstrated throughout.

TAE Committee

The Thesis Area Examination is administered by a TAE Chair and two committee members.

• The chair of the committee is appointed by DCGS: a DMSE faculty member whose principal area of research and intellectual pursuits differ from that of the student’s thesis advisor(s).
• The identities of the other committee members should be discussed between the student and thesis advisor(s). The student is responsible for contacting these potential committee members and requesting their participating as part of the student’s TAE committee. At least one of the other two faculty examiners must also be DMSE faculty. The third member of the committee may be an MIT DMSE senior research associate, lecturer, or senior lecturer. If the student wants a Thesis Committee member from outside of the department, that member can be on the thesis committee but will not be part of the TAE Committee.
• The thesis advisor(s) is not formally a member of the TAE Committee but is a non-voting attendee at the TAE who may make comments to the committee and provide information regarding the student and their research and progress following the examination after the student is excused from the examination room.

TAE Committee assignments are finalized by the end of October in the semester after the completion of the first-year requirements.

TAE Performance Evaluation

The TAE Committee evaluates performance on a Pass/Conditional Pass/No Pass basis:

The student has met all requirements to register in the program as a doctoral candidate starting the following term.

Conditional Pass

The student needs to address areas that require further mastery in the written proposal or oral presentation. The TAE Committee will outline an individualized remedial plan. After completing this requirement, the student will be eligible to register as a doctoral candidate.

The student is required to retake the TAE by scheduling another oral presentation and preparing another written proposal, if recommended, by the TAE Committee.

Doctoral Thesis

Doctoral candidates (who have passed the qualifying examinations) must complete a doctoral thesis that satisfies MIT and departmental requirements to receive the doctoral degree. General Institute Requirements are described in the MIT Bulletin and  MIT Graduate Policies and Procedures .

PhD Thesis Committee

The doctoral thesis committee advises the student on all aspects of the thesis experience, all the way up through the preparation and defense of the final thesis document. The student and thesis advisor will hold progress reviews with the thesis committee at least once a year. Written feedback to the student is required and also must be submitted to DCGS. The thesis advisor holds responsibility for assembling this written feedback and sharing it with the DMSE Graduate Academic Office and the student. After the TAE is completed, the final doctoral thesis committee is constituted of the members of the two (non-chair) Thesis Area Examination (TAE) committee members and the student’s advisor.

• The chair of the oral thesis area examination committee steps down.
• The final PhD Thesis Committee will have at least two members who are not advisors or co-advisors.
• At least half the members of the thesis committee must be DMSE faculty.

Petitions for thesis committee changes, including the addition of new committee members or committee members from outside of DMSE must be submitted the DCGS Chair.

• Download the  Graduate Student Petition (pdf) and complete it.
• Send the completed petition to  [email protected] .

Year 3 Update Meeting

After successful completion of the TAE, this meeting is held in the fall term or spring term of the student’s third year. The purpose of this meeting is to update the thesis committee of the student’s plans and progress and to seek guidance from the thesis committee on advancing toward the doctoral degree. Students must register for 3.998 (Doctoral Thesis Update Meeting). Starting with the thesis proposal as a point of departure, the student presents the revised vision of the path forward including challenges and obstacles. All members of the thesis committee are expected to be physically present at this meeting. This meeting is exclusive to the student and the thesis committee. The 3.998 Doctoral Thesis Update Meeting DocuSign Form must be sent to the DMSE Graduate Academic Office.

• Preview the  3.998 Doctoral Thesis Update Meeting Form (pdf) and prepare your responses. Then click the button below, add the responses, and send the form via DocuSign.

Plan-to-Finish Meeting

Approximately one year before the expected graduation, but no later than six months before the planned PhD defense, the student will schedule a Plan-to-Finish meeting with the thesis committee. The purpose of the meeting is for the committee to determine whether the student will likely be ready for graduation within a year. The student will present the projected outline of the thesis, important data that will become part of the thesis, and what still needs to be done.   The student will prepare a written document for the committee that will include the following:

• Research results
• Graduation timeline
• List of papers published or in preparation
• List of classes the student has taken to satisfy the PhD course requirements

The document must delivered to the committee one week before the presentation. This presentation is exclusive to the student and the thesis committee. At the end of the meeting the committee decides whether the student is likely to proceed toward the PhD defense, or whether another Plan-to-Finish meeting is necessary. The committee will then prepare brief written feedback to the student.

Doctoral Thesis and Oral Defense

DMSE’s long-standing emphasis on original research is a key element in the candidate’s educational development.

• Scheduling of the final PhD defense can take place no earlier than six months after a successful Plan-to-Finish meeting.
• The PhD thesis will be delivered to the committee members one month before the defense. 
• The committee members will respond in two weeks with comments on the written document, giving the student two weeks to modify the thesis.
• At least one week before the defense the candidate will provide copies of the final thesis document to Thesis Committee members and to the DMSE Graduate Academic Office along with the confirmed date, time, and room for the defense.

Defense Process

The DMSE Graduate Academic Office will publicize the defense.

• The defense begins with a formal presentation of the thesis of approximately 45 minutes.
• The floor is then opened to questions from the general audience, which is then excused.
• The Thesis Committee continues the examination of the candidate in private.
• The candidate is finally excused from the room and the committee votes.
• A majority yes vote is required to approve the thesis.

Doctoral Thesis Examination Report Form

Before the thesis defense, the student must prepare the Doctoral Thesis Examination Report Form, filling out the top portion of the form—term, name and email address, dates of Plan-to-Finish Meeting, Thesis Defense, and Thesis Examination Committee Member names. Preview the  Doctoral Thesis Examination Report Form (pdf) and prepare your responses. Then click the button below, add the responses, and send the form via DocuSign.

Scheduling a presentation in May and August may be difficult because of faculty unavailability and availability of presentation rooms. Faculty are not on academic appointments in the summer and are often on travel. This may lead to the need to reschedule your defense, in some cases into the next term. 

Thesis Format

The usual thesis format, a cohesive document, is traditional. Occasionally, the thesis may separate naturally into two or more sections, which are more directly publishable individually.

• The thesis should include a general introduction, abstract, and conclusions.
• The sections should be arranged so that the document reads as a whole.
• Put detailed descriptions of procedures and tables of data in appendices so that the thesis sections may be comparable in length and scope to journal articles

Use of this alternate format does not imply a change in the requirement for original research, in the student/thesis advisor relationship, or in their respective roles in producing the thesis document, all of which still apply.

Communications Resources

Specifications for Thesis Presentation

Get information on thesis preparation, formatting, and submission.

MIT Writing and Communications Center

Sign up for writing consultations and workshops.

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Events Calendar

Physics PhD Thesis Defense: Zhiyu Dong

Tuesday, May 09, 2023 at 3:00pm

Room #3-329

You are cordially invited to attend the following thesis defense. "Stoner magnetism and Berry phase in topological bands" Presented by Zhiyu Dong Date: Tuesday, May 9, 2023 Time: 3 pm Location: Room #3-329 Also on Zoom. Link available from Physics Office. Committee:   Leonid Levitov, Patrick A Lee, Raymond Ashoori Best of luck to Zhiyu! Regards, The MIT Physics Graduate Program

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Doctoral Thesis Defense – Alexandra E. Jones-Kellett (MIT-WHOI)

“a lagrangian perspective of mesoscale biophysical interactions in the subtropical ocean”.

A public presentation of the thesis will be given by the candidate.

DATE: Monday August 26, 2024 TIME: 11:30am PLACE: 54-915 and Zoom with pre-registration

DEFENSE CHAIR: Prof. Andrew Babbin, MIT, EAPS

THESIS COMMITTEE: Prof. Michael J. Follows, Advisor, MIT Dr. Stephanie Dutkiewicz, MIT Dr. Amala Mahadevan, WHOI Prof. Colleen Mouw, University of Rhode Island

Copies of the thesis may be obtained from the WHOI Academic Programs Office (contact [email protected] ) and from the EAPS Education Office (contact [email protected] or visit Room 54-912). If interested JP faculty who read the draft thesis wish to participate in the private defense, please contact the thesis defense chair at least three business days prior to the defense date. 

All interested faculty, staff and students are invited to attend.

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PhD student who dreamed of being an inventor and builder is now making strides in world of quantum photonics

Achievements, honors for electrical engineer Samuel Peana now will include a 3-year Truman Fellowship at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico

Purdue electrical and computer engineering PhD candidate Sam Peana, right, discusses his research focused on nanostructured single photon emitters with Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the National Science Foundation, during his recent campus visit, which included a stop at Birck Nanotechnology Center. (Purdue University photo/Kelsey Ann Lefever)

Growing up, Samuel Peana loved to build things. The world was his playground for tinkering and taking apart common things and discovering how they work — especially the inner workings of computers and potential interconnections between computers and robots, an interest sparked by his father, who was an engineer for Motorola.

“As long as I can remember, I think the job description I wanted was as an inventor. I wanted to design and build things that nobody had done before,” Peana says.

Peana (pronounced Payn-yuh) graduated this spring with his PhD in electrical engineering from Purdue University. Commencement ceremonies in May culminated Peana’s nine-year academic journey studying how to create optically driven microrobotic actuators based on shape memory alloy thin films integrated with plasmonics while also researching the challenging field of integrated quantum photonics.

For his doctoral dissertation, Peana was part of a Purdue team including Zachariah Martin and Alexander Senichev that discovered a type of single photon emitter that occurs at the interface of silicon nitride and silicon dioxide after being rapidly heated. The research has applications and major implications for quantum mechanics.

Decorated with several scholarships, fellowships and awards during his young career, Peana also won a College of Engineering 2024 Outstanding Research Award, which recognizes graduate students who have demonstrated excellence and leadership in research through publications, participation in professional organizations and a willingness to mentor others. And the honors keep coming: This spring, he was awarded a three-year Truman Fellowship from Sandia National Laboratories to continue his research and postdoctoral studies, beginning this October, at the U.S. Department of Energy facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“Building on my terrific experience at Purdue, I’m excited about the opportunity to continue my research as a Truman Fellow at Sandia, which has one of the nation’s best research foundries,” says Peana, who looks forward to a career in deep tech research in either academia or industry.

Additional Information

• Peana Dissertation: Toward Scalable Quantum Photonic Systems: Intrinsic Single-Photon Emitters In Silicon Nitride/Oxide
• Birck Nanotechnology Center
• Sandia National Laboratories

Sparking a love of learning, computers, technology

Raised by a mechanical engineer father and a mother now pursuing a doctoral degree, Peana was destined to be an innovator and builder, growing up in a variety of places including Florida, Ireland, Arizona and southwest Missouri.

“When we were living in Arizona, my father had this drawer filled with these old junk computers. He said, ‘Look, this is a motherboard, there’s the processor.’ And I thought, this is the coolest thing ever,” he says. Later, Peana recalls finding a textbook on his father’s bookshelf that explained Microsoft Visual Basic 1.0, one of the world’s most widely used computer programming languages for the MS-DOS operating system.

“I had seen the book, flipped through it and was confused what it was. Then, one day I suddenly realized that this book explains how computers are instructed and then got it down from the shelf and started to learn from it,” he says. “The whole summer, I would wake up each morning, read the book and practice because I wanted to learn how to program computers.”

After consulting with a robotics engineer at work, Peana’s father purchased for his precocious 13-year-old a Parallax Propeller multicore microprocessor that quickly became his newest obsession. “It was an 8-core processor, so you could program it to run eight simultaneous tasks. I remember going to sleep thinking about programming and then waking up thinking about it,” he says, eventually making a variety of devices including multichannel synthesizers; a clap-on, clap-off controller for his bedroom lights; and a simple wheeled robot.

Valedictorian at Central High School in 2010, Peana was accepted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned an undergraduate degree in physics and mathematics in 2014. There he gained an introduction to professional research, working as an undergraduate researcher with professors Markus Klute, Peter Fisher and Linda Sugiyama at MIT’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science.

Becoming Boilermaker

With a foundation laid in the fundamentals of science, he was ready for a step into engineering — to transfer the knowledge of physics and math into real-world applications and technology solutions. While still not sure what his doctorate would entail, he knew it would center on engineering. And he was excited about the potential Purdue offered with its tradition as one of the nation’s best engineering universities and the state-of-the-art research facilities it afforded students, especially the Birck Nanotechnology Center.

Awarded Purdue’s prestigious Ross Fellowship, which comes with four years of stipend, salary and tuition coverage for the winning doctoral applicant, Peana had the flexibility to develop an independent, long-term research vision. And, unlike most of his peers, he arrived at Purdue without an advisor. “So, I showed up and I’m just floating around, which was a very good thing because I was able to explore the whole ECE department. I examined all the different faculty members that were doing things that I thought were interesting.”

Inspired by what he saw, he developed a novel approach for the development of optically driven microrobotic actuators. Given the breadth of this work, Peana pursued two PhD co-advisors: Vlad Shalaev, the Robert and Anne Burnett Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Dana Weinstein, an electrical and computer engineering professor and associate dean of graduate education. Shalaev’s group Nanometa consists of up to 25 researchers and focuses heavily on nano-optics and photonics. Weinstein’s group is focused on micro-electromechanical systems.

This combination of expertise that both advisors brought to the table were critical for Peana. He worked on his microactuator research program until the startling discovery of single photon emitters in silicon nitride, which prompted a radical shift in his research toward integrated quantum photonics for his PhD thesis. Since silicon nitride on silicon dioxide is a common platform for integrated photonics, the discovery of a native emitter in this platform creates for the first time the possibility for seamless integration of single photon emitters with silicon nitride photonic circuitry without requiring additional materials. A single photon emitter emits light as single particles or photons distinct from classical light sources that emit multiple photons of light at a time. Such sources of single photons are critical for quantum optical applications.

“We can make integrated photonic circuits at a large scale, 200 millimeters. But the emitters are so new that most of the material science and physics of these emitters is not understood; we don’t even know what forms there,” he says. “It’s like a mystery. There are all these clues. You know something happened, but you don’t know why. We go step by step trying to understand exactly what happened.”

In his research, Peana discovered that if silicon nitride on silicon oxide is nanostructured into nanopillars and annealed, a single photon emitter forms over 65% of the time within the nanopillar. This discovery, he says, has generated excitement for the inherent scalability of this approach and its applications for developing very large scale integrated on-chip quantum photonic systems.

“This leap in experimental capability and scaling is exciting because we’re beginning to operate and do experiments at the level of single atomic objects, and that means we’re manipulating matter, we’re measuring matter at a level that has never been done before, that was thought not possible,” he says. “This will deepen our understanding of matter and how to work with it, leading to technologies that we don’t even have names for yet.”

What awaits Truman Fellow at Sandia

Knowing his PhD student for nearly a decade now, Professor Shalaev says Peana has made a significant impact on Purdue and his research field during his time here — proven by his numerous awards, including the exceptionally competitive Truman Fellowship from Sandia National Labs. “Not only is he a great young researcher, Dr. Peana is also very cultural. He plays saxophone, is interested in history, literature and arts. And on top of that, he is an extremely warm, friendly and nice person with a great sense of humor — a true soul of our research team,” Shalaev says. “He is a rare gem, and we’re happy to have him as our team member.”

Noted as one of the nation’s best research foundries, Sandia is focused on research and development responsibilities in nuclear deterrence, global security, defense, energy technologies and economic competitiveness. While Birck, the home for Peana’s research over the past several years, is a high-end research facility for initial exploration, he says, Sandia will allow him to advance his efforts, specifically investigating how to manufacture the emitters at a large scale for potential quantum technology applications.

Researchers, Peana says, have achieved making single photons. But that’s just a start for making quantum devices. After 40 years of research, scientists and engineers are now able to do this with two quantum dots. But anything that requires entanglements among different emitters is extremely challenging.

“You need the photons that come out to be identical, and you need large amounts of them. And when you start looking at quantum computing, for example, we can manufacture emitters,” he says. “But a lot of research is still needed for optimizing their performance — so that the photons that come out are exactly the same so we can control the wavelength that they emit at, to improve their stability and brightness. We’re still down in the basement level on the development work for this.”

Building on his work at Purdue, a key first step in continuing his research at Sandia, Peana says, is to determine why these emitters form and to understand what the emitter actually is. Next, he’ll test different parameters, materials, temperatures and their annealing properties to see if the emitter’s brightness can be controlled while remaining stable and, most importantly, indistinguishable — where the photons generated are identical. “If we’re really swinging for the fences, we want to show we can make multiple ones and have strong quantum interference between them,” Peana says. “That would be shocking if it actually works because no other solid-state emitter can do that now at scale.”

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