yale dissertation format

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School of Public Health 2023–2024

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The Thesis/Dissertation

The Ph.D. thesis in PH should be of publishable quality and represent a substantial contribution to the advancement of knowledge in a field of scholarship. The Graduate School policy in regard to the dissertation is as follows:

The dissertation should demonstrate the student’s mastery of relevant resources and methods and should make an original contribution to knowledge in the field. Normally, it is expected that a dissertation will have a single topic, however broadly defined, and that all parts of the dissertation will be interrelated, but can constitute essentially discrete units. Beyond this principle, the faculty will apply the prevailing intellectual standards and scholarly practices within their fields in advising students with regard to the suitable scope, length, and structure of the dissertation, including what constitutes an original contribution to that field.

The dissertation may be presented as a single monograph resulting in a major publication, or as (typically) a minimum of three first-authored scientific papers. One or more of the papers should be published, accepted for publication, or be in submission. The collected paper option does not imply that any combination of papers would be acceptable. For example, three papers related to background material (review papers), or three papers that reported associations of three unrelated exposures, or three papers of the same exposure but reporting different outcomes would not be acceptable. Rather, it is expected that the papers represent a cohesive, coherent, and integrated body of work. For example, one paper might be a systematic review and meta-analysis of the topic, another might develop a new methodological approach, and the third might apply those new methods to an area of current public health interest. In the collected paper option, the final thesis must include introductory and discussion chapters to summarize and integrate the published papers.

The DAC reviews the progress of the dissertation research and decides when the dissertation is ready to be submitted to the readers. This decision is made based on a closed defense of the dissertation. The dissertation defense involves a formal oral presentation to the DAC. (Per the adviser’s discretion, other invited faculty may be present.) Upon completion of the closed defense, the chair/adviser of the DAC submits its recommendation to the DGS along with the names of three appropriate readers for GSEC review.

There will be a minimum of three readers, one of whom is at YSPH. The second reader can be from YSPH or another Yale department. Both Yale readers must hold a Graduate School appointment, and at least one should be a senior faculty member. The third reader must be selected from outside the University. All readers must be recognized authorities in the area of the dissertation. The outside reader must submit a curriculum vitae for review by the GSEC. The outside reader should be an individual who has not coauthored a publication(s) with members of the student’s DAC and/or the student within the preceding three years. However, this restriction does not apply to mega-multiauthored publications. Members of the DAC are not eligible to serve as readers. After the completed readers’ reports are received by the Graduate School, they are reviewed by the DGS prior to making a School of Public Health recommendation to the Graduate School that the degree be awarded. The DAC may be asked to comment on the readers’ reports before recommendations are made to the Graduate School.

Oral Presentation of the Doctoral Dissertation

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) dissertations in PH must be presented in a public seminar. This presentation is scheduled after the closed defense, after submission of the dissertation to the readers, and preferably prior to the receipt and consideration of the readers’ reports. At least one member each of the DAC and GSEC is expected to attend the presentation. It is expected to be presented during the academic term in which the dissertation was submitted and must be widely advertised within YSPH.

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Department of Physics

You are here, dissertation and completion, forming a dissertation committee, outside reader, dissertation defense, dissertation requirements.

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Reader Duties

Graduation checklist, continued research after graduation.

Access after Graduation

The Physics Department requires a 4-member Yale faculty committee plus an outside reader to approve a dissertation and defense for graduation. The core committee and DGS must approve the additional members prior to the student inviting the final faculty and outside reader to join their dissertation committee.

Typically, the Committee would include the members of the core thesis committee and one more faculty member. Two of the faculty members on the committee must have a primary or secondary appointment in physics, two must be from Yale, and two must be tenured. These requirements need not be satisfied by the same two people. A full list of faculty members can be found here . 

Usually, the make-up of the committee is as follows:

For students in an experimental field:

(1) Adviser and (2) another in the same experimental field; (3) another in the same field but theoretical; (4) another experimentalist (any field) and (5) approved outside reader

For students in a theoretical field:

(1) Adviser and (2) another in the same theoretical field; (3) another in the same field but experimental; (4) another theorist (any field) and (5) approved outside reader

The outside reader must be someone outside of Yale who has had no direct involvement with the student’s dissertation analysis, but who may be familiar with the student work and be someone who can be objective in their evaluation of the dissertation. The outside reader is usually selected by the student and their dissertation adviser and must be approved by the DGS. 

Dissertations should be sent electronically to outside readers and other committee members, prior to the defense, to provide ample time for readers to provide comments in a timely manner. Outside readers should be invited to the dissertation defense but their presence is not required.

Once the Dissertation Committee is chosen and approved by the DGS, it is the student’s responsibility to set the date, time, and place (online or in person) for the defense, at a time convenient to all members of the Committee. This information should be relayed to the graduate registrar and senior administrator via the Notification of Leave/Graduation form or directly through email. Copies of the dissertation should be given to the committee members at least two weeks in advance of the scheduled defense. 

The dissertation defense shall consist of two consecutive parts. The first part, which shall be open to anyone interested, will consist of an oral presentation of approximately one-hour in length, in the style of a research seminar. An announcement will appear in the weekly Seminar Notices. The second part will consist of detailed questioning of the candidate by the dissertation committee, at which attendance will be restricted to members of the committee.

Ideally, Dissertation Defenses should be scheduled before the University’s dissertation submission deadline to give committee readers time to review the dissertation, attend your defense and provide feedback before your official dissertation is submitted to the University.  Students must defend no later than November 1st or April 15th, one month after they defense dissertation has been submitted.  Please see the Graduation Checklist for deadlines and more detailed information below. 

The Graduate School has specific rules about formatting, etc. When you are preparing your final draft, you should consult their Dissertations page and Formatting Guide . Review the Dissertation section of Programs and Policies for the fine print about the dissertation process, reader committees, language requirements, and more. Sample LaTex templates can be found under the Department Forms section below. 

Dissertation First Chapter

The Physics Department recommends that the first chapter of the thesis be a succinct summary of the entire thesis, including in particular:

a brief review of the field prior to the thesis research to provide context

a presentation of the goals and motivations of the thesis research

a clear description of what the student has achieved in the thesis research (primarily written in the first person singular, but with due credit to others as appropriate). This description should refer back to (1) and clearly indicate the relation to prior work.

It may also make sense to add:

suggestions for how to best build upon the thesis research in future work.

Otherwise, these suggestions should appear in the conclusion of the thesis.

Submitting Your Dissertation

After the defense, the committee may ask the student to make some changes in the dissertation. These changes must be made before submission to the Graduate School. Alternatively, if you have already submitted your dissertation to the Dissertation office, you may replace single pages or chapters with minor edits. 

If major edits are required, the student will have two weeks to make the necessary revisions and have edits reviewed by their advisor before resubmission to the Graduate School. Your advisor will then have to send the dissertation office their approval of your revised dissertation. 

Submission guidelines are posted on-line at the Graduate School’s website: Dissertation Guidelines , Dissertation formatting , and Notification of Readers form . Remember to list your advisor as one of the 5 readers. Dissertations must be submitted to the Dissertation office by October 1st for December graduation or March 15th for May graduation.

Note: Students must be registered through the term of dissertation submission (unless they have already completed their sixth year).

Once a student is ready to submit their dissertation, they will enter their reader information into the NOR system. All five committee members’ information must be entered for DGS/ Registrar approval. The readers listed will receive a link from the Dissertation office giving them access to your submitted dissertation and asking them to complete the questions listed below within one month’s time but no later than the reader report deadline. The reader report deadline per graduation cycle is one month after the dissertation submission deadline.

These are the questions on the official Reader’s Report for the Graduate School of Yale University - 

1) Do you consider the substance of the dissertation acceptable for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy? If you found the dissertation acceptable, what is your estimate of the work as a whole?

2) Are there editorial errors (for example, problems with spelling, grammar, or references of such consequence or in insufficient number that they affect the substance of the dissertation and must be corrected before the faculty votes on this dissertation? If you answered yes, please list below the required changes (there is no limit to the length of your comments, text created in another document can also be copy/pasted below)

3) Please evaluate each of the following as Distinguished, Very Good, Good or Fair:

   a. Command of the literature of the subject

   b. Originality

   c. Insight and judgment

   d. Clearness

   e. Style

   f. Mastery of the method used in research

4) Without summarizing the dissertation, please state in detail the reason for your evaluation, indicating the strengths and weaknesses of the work and the way in which it makes an original contribution to its field (there is no limit to the length of your comments, text created in another document can also be copy/pasted below)

5) Dissertation Reader’s advice to the candidate (optional)

   a. Do you recommend eventual publication in print of part or all of this dissertation?

   b. If so, in what form?

      Articles:

         a. Which parts?

         b. What revision is needed?

      Book:

         What general suggestions for revision would you make?

If a reader requests edits to be made to your dissertation, the student must make the appropriate edits and receive their advisor’s approval of the edits before submitting an updated dissertation to the university.

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Once a student is ready to graduate, there are departmental steps and university requirements to be followed by the dates listed below.

Due by February 15th for May Graduation or September 1st for December Graduation 

Complete the Notification of Leave/Graduation online form to notify the office of your defense date, your last day in the lab and your future contact information. Do not enter your current campus contact information unless you do not plan on moving for several months after graduation.

Students are responsible for scheduling a date, time and physical or virtual room location for their thesis defense. Please give your committee members adequate notice when trying to schedule your defense. Defense information can now be included in your Notification of Leave/Graduation form and will be announced in the weekly newsletter. 

With the assistance of your advisor, find an appropriate outside reader and submit their name and position to the DGS for approval.

Due by March 15th or October 1st

Provide the  Thesis Progress Report Form  to your dissertation committee members for signature during your defense. Forward your signed form(s) and a PDF copy of your Dissertation to the graduate registrar. See below for further Defense details.

Review and complete the Yale GSAS  Dissertation Submission Checklist .

Enter your reader information into the  Notification of Readers (NOR) portal, and notify the graduate registrar when done.

Submit your final dissertation to the Registrar’s Office. See above for further submission guidance. 

Due by April 15th or November 1st

• Students must complete their defense by April 15th for May graduation or November 1st for December graduation
• Reader reports are due one month after your dissertation is uploaded to NOR or by April 15th or November 1st

Prior to leaving

Schedule a 30-minute Exit Interview with the  Chair  or  DGS  to talk about your experience in the program. Sample Exit Interview Questions can be found here .

Update Notification of Leave/Graduation form with any new future employment or address changes.

Confirm last day of pay with the graduate registrar.

Notify the graduate registrar when you have returned your keys, coats, or other university provided equipment.

These deadlines have been established to allow sufficient time for readers to make careful evaluations and for the department to review those evaluations before making our recommendation to the Graduate School on degrees earned. No extensions of the deadlines will be granted. Dissertations submitted after the deadlines will be considered during the following term. 

Students are permitted to continue working as research assistants after they have graduated up to the start of a new academic semester. If the advisor is willing to continue their support, December graduates can be paid up to January 15th, and May graduates may continue to be paid until August 31st. It is important to note that student health insurance will end for December graduates on January 31st and July 31st for May graduates. The university does offer a one-month insurance rider for May Graduates requesting coverage for August.

IT Access after Graduation

After you graduate, your access to Yale accounts and information will change. Your Yale email account will stay active for a year, while other things, like VPN access will be removed six months after graduation. For a complete timeline of access changes, please see IT’s Graduating Students webpage .

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Formal MD Thesis Requirement

All students at Yale School of Medicine engage in research and are required to write an MD thesis during medical school. The only exceptions are students who have earned a PhD degree in the health sciences before matriculation and students enrolled in Yale’s MD/PhD program. The YSM MD Thesis is under the governance of the EPCC, which meets regularly to recommend rules, regulations, and deadlines.

Deadlines/Important Dates

Thesis approval process, thesis awards, required formatting and components of the md thesis, examples for reference section formatting, avoiding the risk of copyright violation and liability when submitting your md thesis, instructions for submitting a thesis to the yale medicine thesis digital library, thesis depositors declaration form, evaluations of advisor, student evaluation of thesis advisor.

• Yale School of Medicine Digital Thesis Depositor’s Declaration Form
• Thesis Deadline Extension Request Form

Thesis Deadlines for the 2023-2024 Academic Year

Md students:.

The Office of Student Research, in conjunction with the Dean’s Office, has established the following deadlines for theses submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation in May 2024. The deadlines ensure that (1) students have sufficient time to complete their theses; (2) that there is sufficient time for rigorous departmental review and subsequent revision by students before final approval. These deadlines are strictly followed. Students are strongly encouraged to submit their theses well before the Class of 2024 Thesis Deadlines provided below. This timeliness will provide students, advisors, and sponsoring departments sufficient time for useful review and revision. It should be recognized by all concerned that the integrity of the thesis requirement and effective, rigorous review requires adherence to these deadlines. OSR will hold periodic “Thesis Check-in Sessions” via zoom for the Class of 2024 and will send periodic reminder emails with more detailed instructions as these deadlines approach.

*Students missing the August 4th, January 19th, and/or March 29th deadlines will be referred to the Progress Committee to ensure they receive adequate support to make progress towards this graduation requirement. Students missing the January 19th and/or March 29th deadlines will be ineligible for thesis prizes at graduation.

Extensions beyond the above thesis deadlines will be granted only for special circumstances and must have the approval of the student’s thesis mentor/advisor, academic advisor, and the Departmental Thesis Chairperson . Students seeking an extension for the January 19, 2024, deadline must submit a Thesis Deadline Extension Request Form to their Academic Advisor, and the Departmental Thesis Chair, for approval. Students missing the August 4th, January 19th, and/or March 29th deadlines will be referred to the Progress Committee to ensure they receive adequate support to make progress towards this graduation requirement. In the event of an extension, if granted, the following ABSOLUTE Class of 2024 Thesis Extension Deadlines will apply:

*All late theses require an extension. The student must submit the Thesis Deadline Extension Request Form before January 19, 2024.

MD/MHS Students:

Consistent with degree requirements, MD/MHS students must present their thesis to their three-person committee prior to the January 19th deadline. Students are encouraged to start arranging the date of this committee meeting in the fall to avoid unanticipated delays.

MD/PhD Students:

A different process applies to students in the MD/PhD program. For students enrolled in the combined MD/PhD Program, the dissertation submitted to and approved by the Graduate School will satisfy the MD thesis requirement. Therefore, MD/PhD students who have already defended their dissertation and received their PhD should provide this information to OSR via email as soon as possible.

To ensure compliance with YSM graduation deadlines, MD/PhD students in the class of 2024 who have not defended and submitted their dissertation to the Graduate School by the October 1, 2023, deadline will need to submit a copy of their dissertation directly to OSR via the MD/PhD Box Upload Link by March 15, 2024. OSR will convene a committee to review the dissertation, obtain feedback, and provide approval for graduation. Please note that MD/PhD students must also defend and submit their dissertation to the Graduate School no later than March 15, 2024, to meet the Graduate School spring degree deadline for conferral of the PhD degree. MD/PhD students who have not yet defended their dissertation should provide this information to OSR. If there are any questions about the process, please contact the MD/PhD Office.

Financial support is not provided for writing the thesis.

Thesis Preparation and Approval

Preparation for thesis submission begins in the summer of the fourth year with the OSR leadership. At this time, timeline and practices are distributed via email and reviewed with students in class meetings. Because thesis approval is a lengthy process involving three levels of review, students are encouraged to manage their time well and start writing their first draft early in the fall semester of their final year of medical school. A suggested timeline is provided below.

July : Thesis deadlines are distributed via email to all students in the graduating class and an informational session is held. Students should be on track to complete their thesis research by mid-fall. Any student anticipating a challenge in this regard should contact the OSR as soon as possible. All students expecting to graduate in May of a given year must, provide the OSR with information regarding their thesis title and mentor/advisor. Students will receive an email from the OSR containing a Medtrics link requesting this information. The OSR will contact all thesis mentors/advisors to confirm this role and to provide information and expectations regarding the thesis process.

August – December : Students should be finalizing research and writing their thesis draft. As the semester progresses, activities should shift from the data generation/analysis to the writing of the actual thesis. Students should do their best to complete the first draft of the thesis by mid-late December. Because students are also involved in the residency application and interview process, they are discouraged from starting new projects at this time.

December – January : This period is devoted to reviewing and editing of thesis draft that is ultimately approved by their thesis mentor/advisor and submitted by the student to the Thesis Chair of their sponsoring department. The YSM thesis mentor/advisor will be asked to complete a thesis assessment that evaluates the student’s mastery of YSM’s research-related educational objectives and provides formative summative feedback to the student.

January – March : The Departmental Thesis Chair coordinates thesis review by external reviewers. An “external reviewer” is defined as an individual who is not directly involved in the project. This individual may be a Yale faculty member internal or external to YSM or may hold a faculty appointment at an outside institution. This reviewer is required to complete a thesis assessment and provide formative summative feedback, as well as recommendations for any required changes, to the thesis. Departmental Thesis Chairs review assessments, notify students of departmental approval, and transmit these approvals to the OSR.

March : Theses and their associated assessments undergo school-level review by the OSR. Students receive YSM approval of their thesis along with summative feedback obtained during the review process. Students incorporate any required changes into their thesis and upload to the Yale Medicine Digital Thesis Library/Eli Scholar via the ProQuest platform (see below).

April : The OSR confirms that theses have been deposited into the Yale Medicine Digital Thesis Library and the registrar receives the names of students who have completed the thesis requirement.

The central role of the medical student thesis is to assess student’s performance on the YSM’s research-related educational objectives. As such, all students are expected to produce an excellent piece of scholarly work. In recognition of these achievements, the OSR has worked to develop an award process that celebrates the wonderful research being done by our students without creating a competitive atmosphere surrounding the thesis. Hence, thesis awards are based on competency-based assessments submitted by thesis mentors/advisors and reviewers during the approval process, and internal review of the final thesis that was deposited into the Yale Medicine Digital Thesis Library. Consistent with all other graduation prizes, YSM MD Thesis Awards will remain confidential until they are announced in the YSM Commencement Program on May 20, 2024. While some departments may elect to confer thesis “honors” based upon their own internal review, this recognition is distinct from YSM graduation prizes and is not under OSR’s purview.

Read about the required formatting and components for the thesis .

See helpful examples for reference section formatting.

Read about avoiding the risk of copyright violation and liability when submitting your MD Thesis.

Learn more about submitting a thesis to the Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library .

Learn more about the Thesis Depositors Declaration Form.

Learn more about evaluating your experience with your thesis advisor .

Apply for a Thesis Extension

Read about the required formatting and components for the thesis.

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Starting with the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) graduating class of 2002, the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library and YSM Office of Student Research have collaborated on the Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library (YMTDL) project, publishing the digitized full text of medical student theses on the web as a valuable byproduct of Yale student research efforts. The digital thesis deposit has been a graduation requirement since 2006. Starting in 2012, alumni of the Yale School of Medicine were invited to participate in the YMTDL project by granting scanning and hosting permission to the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, which digitized the Library’s print copy of their thesis or dissertation. A grant from the Arcadia Fund in 2017 provided the means for digitizing over 1,000 additional theses. IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE YALE COMMUNITY AND NEED ACCESS TO A THESIS RESTRICTED TO THE YALE NETWORK, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR VPN (VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK) IS ON.

Yale School of Medicine Physician Associate Program Theses ( School of Medicine )

Starting with the Yale Physician Associate (PA) Program’s Class of 2020, the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library and the Yale PA Research Program have collaborated to publish the digitized full text of PA student theses on the web as a valuable byproduct of Yale student research efforts. Please review the Terms & Conditions in the left-hand column in order to avoid copyright infringement.

Yale School of Nursing Digital Theses ( School of Nursing )

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• Dissertation Completion Status

Dissertation Completion Status (DCS) is a less-than-half time student registration status specifically designed for PhD candidates who:

• are not eligible for full-time registration (for example, students beyond year six without additional funding), and/or
• choose to undertake full-time employment, but still intend to complete their PhD under the supervision of a member of the Graduate School faculty. 

DCS allows you to maintain your university access privileges, including netID, electronic library resources, and Yale email account. Students on DCS are charged a Continuous Registration Fee each term. They are not eligible for financial aid. 

Students on Dissertation Completion Status are not eligible to do the following:

• teach in Yale’s Teaching Fellow Program
• purchase and enroll in Yale Health student coverage
• retain Yale student visa sponsorship

Students typically may take up to four terms of DCS, although extensions can be requested with the recommendation of your director of graduate studies. You may request DCS by submitting the Dissertation Completion Status Request Form . 

Note: If you are a PhD candidate who has completed all of your PhD requirements except the dissertation, the Graduate School does not require you to be registered to submit your dissertation . However, programs are not obligated to accept a dissertation once a student’s full-time registration has lapsed. Please be sure to check with your adviser and DGS, if you are considering submitting your dissertation without being registered full time. 

Matthew S. Tanico

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Cataloging @Yale

Yale dissertation workflow, overview: cms processing workflow.

Scope: this workflow is limited to Yale dissertations submitted to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The archival copy is located at Manuscripts and Archives. The microfilm copy is part of the general YUL microform collection. Separate bibliographic records are created for the archival copy and the microfilm copy. Both bibliographic records are exported to MARS and to OCLC.

The Yale community has access to the digitized version of the dissertation via ProQuest, but CMS does not create a separate bibliographic record for the digital version in Orbis, although notes alert the user to the existence of the online copy. For recent dissertations, records for the online version are batch-loaded records derived from ProQuest data rather than YUL cataloging. Unlike the archival & microfilm copies, the records for the online version include the author's abstract.

Bibliographic records for Yale dissertations in this workflow are cataloged at minimal level (encoding level 7). At the request of some school and departmental libraries, full-level cataloging is sometimes performed by CMS for GSA theses in printed form for their collections. Publication status for reproductions of theses depends on the cataloging rules applied at the time.

GSA theses assigned full cataloging, non-GSA Yale theses, and theses of other universities are processed through the standard CMS cataloging workflow.

Historical note: In the original Yale dissertation workflow, a preliminary record was created to represent the thesis while it was being digitized and microfilmed at UMI, and was then used as the basis for the archival copy record. In the current workflow, the bibliographic record is not created until it has been delivered to Catalog and Metadata Services (CMS).

Archival Copy

After microfilming and digitizing, ProQuest (formerly UMI) sends the archival copy of the thesis to MSS&A, and the archival copies are sent for binding.

• When the archival copies have been bound, MSS&A delivers them in batches to Catalog and Metadata Services (CMS) for minimal level cataloging.
• A record for the archival copy (E/L 7) will generally be created by a CMS C&T staff member. The record will follow the Guidelines for cataloging the archival copy of the Yale dissertation.
• If a fully cataloged record has already been created by another unit, a separate record will be created for the archival dissertation and a linking note will be added to the catalog record of the copy.  If necessary, the bibliographic record will be upgraded to follow the standards of the Guidelines.
• The location entered by CMS staff will be smlmss, but no call number will be assigned. (LSF software will flip the location from smlmss to lsfmssr upon receipt if the copy is sent to LSF)
• After cataloging, the record will be exported to MARS and subsequently to OCLC with other records cataloged in Orbis.
• The record will NOT be suppressed in the OPAC.
• CMS staff will affix a barcode to the front cover of the archival copy (or to the front cover of its container) and create an item record linked to the barcode and the MFHD. The newly created item record will not be charged or discharged by CMS staff. Upon completion, CMS staff notify MSS&A staff for pick-up.

Microfilm Copy

After microfilming, ProQuest sends a positive microfilm copy of the thesis to MSS&A.

• When MSS&A receives notice from CMS that the set of all archival copies for the semester have been cataloged, their staff send the microfilm reels in batches to the CMS staff for minimal level cataloging.
• CMS staff upgrades the preliminary record to EL/7 or higher using the cataloging for the archival copy as the source for the bibliographic description. The description is adjusted to account for microform format according to Guidelines for cataloging microfilm copy.
• A sequential number is assigned using the Cataloging Accession Tool  (recommend using IE for browser) 
• After the call number has been assigned, the record for the microfilm is exported to MARS. The call number is written in pencil on the box containing the reel, and the boxes are left for pick-up by Microtext staff on the designated CMS shelf. An item record is not created by CMS staff. Microtext staff create the label using the call number written on the box.
• Yale Dissertations: Archival Copy
• Example: Archival Variable Fields for Completed Record
• Yale Dissertations: Added Locations
• Yale Dissertations: Microfilm
• Example: Microform Variable Fields
• Medical Library Dissertation Variant Edition Cataloging, Print to E-Version

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ProQuest Theses and Dissertations

ProQuest dissertations & theses globa l contains dissertations and theses from around the world, spanning from 1743 to the present day. It also offers full text for graduate works added since 1997, along with selected full text for works written prior to 1997. If you locate a dissertation using another index, bibliography, or database, you can use ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global to search for that dissertation if digitized.

Dissertations & theses @ Yale University

Searchable database of Yale dissertations and theses in all disciplines written by students at Yale University from 1861 to the present. Full text PDF versions available for some titles from 1878. More recent years available in full text.

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Answered By: Laura Galas Last Updated: Jan 19, 2024     Views: 20266

Current Yale students, faculty and staff can access Yale dissertations and theses. 

After dissertations are accepted by and submitted to the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences , they are sent to ProQuest/UMI for microfilming according Yale University policy . In most cases, this process takes 8 months to a year before the original and the m icrofilm copy are returned to the Yale University Library . Once returned, they are discoverable through the searches below. 

Print dissertations

Find print dissertations using  Orbis  or Quicksearch  Books+ .

• Search by title or keyword and use the format filter for "Dissertations & Theses" (image below)
• Many print dissertations are located at our off-site shelving facility (LSF), and you will need place a request for the item. It generally takes 24-48 hours for the item to arrive. You will receive an email notification when the item is available for pickup.

Online dissertations

If you are interested in an electronic copy, you can also find some Yale dissertations in the database Dissertations & Theses @ Yale University .

If you do not find the Yale dissertation you need, please contact [email protected] or call 203-432-1744 during business hours .

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Department of the History of Art

You are here, dissertations, completed dissertations.

1942-present

DISSERTATIONS IN PROGRESS

As of July 2023

Bartunkova, Barbora , “Sites of Resistance: Antifascism and the Czechoslovak Avant-garde” (C. Armstrong)

Betik, Blair Katherine , “Alternate Experiences: Evaluating Lived Religious Life in the Roman Provinces in the 1st Through 4th Centuries CE” (M. Gaifman)

Boyd, Nicole , “Science, Craft, Art, Theater: Four ‘Perspectives’ on the Painted Architecture of Angelo Michele Colonna and Agostino Mitelli” (N. Suthor). 

Brown, Justin , “Afro-Surinamese Calabash Art in the Era of Slavery and Emancipation” (C. Fromont)

Burke, Harry , “The Islands Between: Art, Animism, and Anticolonial Worldmaking in Archipelagic Southeast Asia” (P. Lee)

Chakravorty, Swagato , “Displaced Cinema: Moving Images and the Politics of Location in Contemporary Art” (C. Buckley, F. Casetti)

Chau, Tung , “Strange New Worlds: Interfaces in the Work of Cao Fei” (P. Lee)

Cox, Emily , “Perverse Modernism, 1884-1990” (C. Armstrong, T. Barringer)

Coyle, Alexander , “Frame and Format between Byzantium and Central Italy, 1200-1300” (R. Nelson)

Datta, Yagnaseni , “Materialising Illusions: Visual Translation in the Mughal Jug Basisht, c. 1602.” (K. Rizvi)

de Luca, Theo , “Nicolas Poussin’s Chronotopes” (N. Suthor)

Dechant, D. Lyle . ” ‘daz wir ein ander vinden fro’: Readers and Performers of the Codex Manesse” (J. Jung)

Del Bonis-O’Donnell, Asia, “Trees and the Visualization of kosmos in Archaic and Classical Athenian Art” (M. Gaifman)

Demby, Nicole, “The Diplomatic Image: Framing Art and Internationalism, 1945-1960” (K. Mercer)

Donnelly, Michelle , “Spatialized Impressions: American Printmaking Outside the Workshop, 1935–1975” (J. Raab)

Epifano, Angie , “Building the Samorian State: Material Culture, Architecture, and Cities across West Africa” (C. Fromont)

Fialho, Alex , “Apertures onto AIDS: African American Photography and the Art History of the Storage Unit” (P. Lee, T Nyong’o)

Foo, Adela , “Crafting the Aq Qoyuniu Court (1475-1490) (E. Cooke, Jr.)

Franciosi, Caterina , “Latent Light: Energy and Nineteenth-Century British Art” (T. Barringer)

Frier, Sara , “Unbearable Witness: The Disfigured Body in the Northern European Brief (1500-1620)” (N. Suthor)

Gambert-Jouan, Anabelle , “Sculpture in Place: Medieval Wood Depositions and Their Environments” (J. Jung)

Gass, Izabel, “Painted Thanatologies: Théodore Géricault Against the Aesthetics of Life” (C. Armstrong)

Gaudet, Manon , “Property and the Contested Ground of North American Visual Culture, 1900-1945” (E. Cooke, Jr.)  

Haffner, Michaela , “Nature Cure: ”White Wellness” and the Visual Culture of Natural Health, 1870-1930” (J. Raab)

Hepburn, Victoria , “William Bell Scott’s Progress” (T. Barringer)

Herrmann, Mitchell, “The Art of the Living: Biological Life and Aesthetic Experience in the 21st Century” (P. Lee)

Higgins, Lily , “Reading into Things: Articulate Objects in Colonial North America, 1650-1783” (E. Cooke, Jr.)

Hodson, Josie , “Something in Common: Black Art under Austerity in New York City, 1975-1990” (Yale University, P. Lee)

Hong, Kevin , “Plasticity, Fungibility, Toxicity: Photography’s Ecological Entanglements in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States” (C. Armstrong, J Raab)

Kang, Mia , “Art, Race, Representation: The Rise of Multiculturalism in the Visual Arts” (K. Mercer)

Keto, Elizabeth , “Remaking the World: United States Art in the Reconstruction Era, 1861-1900.” (J. Raab)

Kim, Adela , “Beyond Institutional Critique: Tearing Up in the Work of Andrea Fraser” (P. Lee)

Koposova, Ekaterina , “Triumph and Terror in the Arts of the Franco-Dutch War” (M. Bass)

Lee, Key Jo , “Melancholic Materiality: History and the Unhealable Wound in African American Photographic Portraits, 1850-1877” (K. Mercer)

Levy Haskell, Gavriella , “The Imaginative Painter”: Visual Narrative and the Interactive Painting in Britain, 1851-1914” (T. Barringer, E. Cooke Jr)

Marquardt, Savannah, “Becoming a Body: Lucanian Painted Vases and Grave Assemblages in Southern Italy” (M. Gaifman)

Miraval, Nathalie , “The Art of Magic: Afro-Catholic Visual Culture in the Early Modern Spanish Empire” (C. Fromont)

Mizbani, Sharon , Water and Memory: Fountains, Heritage, and Infrastructure in Istanbul and Tehran (1839-1950) (K. Rizvi)

Molarsky-Beck, Marina, “Seeing the Unseen: Queer Artistic Subjectivity in Interwar Photography” (C. Armstrong)

Nagy, Renata , “Bookish Art: Natural Historical Learning Across Media in Seventeenth-century Northern Europe” (Bass, M)

Olson, Christine , “Owen Jones and the Epistemologies of Nineteenth-Century Design” (T. Barringer)

Petrilli-Jones, Sara , “Drafting the Canon: Legal Histories of Art in Florence and Rome, 1600-1800” (N. Suthor)

Phillips, Kate , “American Ephemera” (J. Raab)

Potuckova, Kristina , “The Arts of Women’s Monastic Liturgy, Holy Roman Empire, 1000-1200” (J. Jung)

Quack, Gregor , “The Social Fabric: Franz Erhard Walther’s Art in Postwar Germany” (P. Lee)

Rahimi-Golkhandan, Shabnam , “The Photograph’s Shabih-Kashi (Verisimilitude) – The Liminal Visualities of Late Qajar Art (1853-1911)” (K. Rizvi)

Rapoport, Sarah , “James Jacques Joseph Tissot in the Interstices of Modernity” (T. Barringer, C. Armstrong)

Riordan, Lindsay , “Beuys, Terror, Value: 1967-1979” (S. Zeidler)

Robbins, Isabella , “Relationality and Being: Indigeneity, Space and Transit in Global Contemporary Art” (P. Lee, N. Blackhawk)

Sen, Pooja , “The World Builders ” (J. Peters)

Sellati, Lillian , “When is Herakles Not Himself? Mediating Cultural Plurality in Greater Central Asia, 330 BCE – 365 CE” (M. Gaifman)

Tang, Jenny , “Genealogies of Confinement: Carceral Logics of Visuality in Atlantic Modernism 1930 – 1945” (K. Mercer)

Thomas, Alexandra , “Afrekete’s Touch: Black Queer Feminist Errantry and Global African Art”  (P. Lee)

Valladares, Carlos , “Jacques Demy” (P. Lee)

Verrot, Trevor , “Sculpted Lamentation Groups in the Late Medieval Veneto” (J. Jung)

Von-Ow, Pierre , Visual Tactics: Histories of Perspective in Britain and its Empire, 1670-1768.”  (T. Barringer)

Wang, Xueli , “Performing Disappearance: Maggie Cheung and the Off-Screen” (Q. Ngan)

Webley, John , “Ink, Paint, and Blood: India and the Great Game in Russian Culture” (T. Barringer, M. Brunson)

Werwie, Katherine , “Visions Across the Gates: Materiality, Symbolism, and Communication in the Historiated Wooden Doors of Medieval European Churches” (J. Jung)

Wisowaty, Stephanie , “Painted Processional Crosses in Central Italy, 1250-1400: Movement, Mediation and Multisensory Effects” (J. Jung)

Young, Colin , “Desert Places: The Visual Culture of the Prairies and the Pampas across the Nineteenth Century” (J. Raab)

Zhou, Joyce Yusi, “Objects by Her Hand: Art and Material Culture of Women in Early Modern Batavia (1619-1799) (M. Bass, E. Cooke, Jr.)

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Medical thesis of the first African-American graduate of the Medical Institution of Yale College, 1857

Medical Historical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library > Medical thesis of the first African-American graduate of the Medical Institution of Yale College, 1857

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