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The Doctor of Philosophy aims to provide students, whether planning on an industrial or academic career, with a challenging research environment and the opportunity to tackle theoretical or applied projects of major scope, depth, and originality.

Courses & Requirements

Course Requirements
The course requirements are broken up into two groups:
  • 18 credits (6 courses) from the MS course list, at most 4 from a single group
  • 24 Credits towards a thesis
This yields a total of 42 credits to complete the doctoral program. No course applied towards the MS degree can be used to satisfy course distribution requirements for the Doctoral degree. Details in the academic catalog:
Additional Requirements
Students are required to report completion of each of these milestones according to the Procedures for Student Progress Through the Ph.D. Program.
  • Passing the CS Doctoral Qualifying Exams
  • Submission & defense at an oral examination of a thesis proposal
  • Completion of the thesis
  • Final defense of the thesis at another oral examination
  • Acceptance of two papers for publication in a peer-reviewed journal or conference approved by the thesis advisor, at least one of which must be in the thesis area. 

Admissions

For more admissions information, visit the Graduate Admissions, and check out our Financial Support options.
In addition to the requirements for admission into the Master of Science in Computer Science program, admission into the Doctor of Philosophy degree program requires a Master’s degree in Computer Science. If the student does not already have an MS in CS, they may be admitted into the MS/Ph.D. program; in this program, students must complete the required coursework for the MS in CS before they complete the degree requirements for the Ph.D. in CS.


Graduate Coordinators

Contact Us

For program questions or to connect with our current students, please contact:

Xinwen Fu, Ph.D.
Professor, Graduate Coordinator for Ph.D. Programs
Phone: 978-934-3623
Email: xinwen_fu@uml.edu