Candidacy Requirements

Comprehensive Exam

All students admitted to the PhD program must successfully complete a written comprehensive examination administered by the department. The purpose of the comprehensive exam is to ascertain the student’s knowledge in his or her field of specialization and related areas. The written exam will cover major topics from within the concentration area and related fields. Students must take the comprehensive exam not later than 12 months after enrollment in the PhD program. Students who do not pass the comprehensive exam may, upon the recommendation of the department, take it for a second time after a lapse of at least 3 months. Failure on the second attempt will result in the student's discontinuation from the graduate program.

Qualifying Exam
All students must successfully complete a qualifying examination, which is to be taken at least two semesters prior to the final defense of the PhD dissertation. The qualifying exam, administered by the dissertation committee is an oral exam in which the student presents his/her research proposal that should include the proposed research methodology and anticipated outcomes, as well as preliminary results. The objective of the oral exam is to determine whether the candidate’s proposal and methodology is adequate for a PhD dissertation. The candidate must show positive preliminary results and considerable promise of original research. It is the responsibility of the student to inform and update the dissertation committee members about his/her research progress especially during the period between the comprehensive and qualifying exams. Students who do not pass the qualifying exam are allowed to take it for a second time after a lapse of three months. Failure on the second attempt will result in the student's discontinuation from the graduate program.

Admission to Candidacy
Students enrolled in the program must be admitted to candidacy at least two semesters before obtaining their PhD degree. To be eligible for candidacy, students must:

Dissertation Requirements
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), a student must submit a dissertation that is expected to make a significant and original contribution to his/her field of research. The research work is to be carried out under the supervision of a full-time faculty member from the CEE department.

Dissertation Committee
The dissertation work will be supervised by a committee of at least four members that includes the primary dissertation adviser, two faculty members from within the same department and a member from outside the department. The dissertation committee will be chaired by the dissertation adviser. One of the committee members must be from outside the research group with which the candidate is associated. Qualified experts relevant to the topic of the research may be selected as additional members, from within or outside of AUB. The PhD dissertation committee must be approved by the department and by the AUB Board of Graduate Studies.
An external reviewer, who is an authority on the dissertation subject, will be selected by the chair of the CEE department in consultation with the dissertation adviser to review the dissertation and judge the scholarly level of the research work. The external examiner must also attend the dissertation defense and participate in the final deliberations.

Dissertation Defense
All PhD candidates must defend their dissertation in public. The candidate will be examined by the dissertation defense committee, which will be chaired by one of the members of the dissertation committee other than the dissertation adviser. A grade of Pass or Fail will be reported for the PhD dissertation. If a grade of Fail is reported, the student may resubmit the dissertation and defend it after a period of at least three months.