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Physics phd program.

Posted November 9, 2021

Deadline: 11:59pm, December 15, 2023

The Department of Physics and Astronomy offers two different PhD degrees designed to best train students in their chosen discipline. For most branches of physics, students should enroll in the  Physics PhD . Students interested in astronomy or astrophysics may apply for either the Physics PhD or the Astronomy PhD .

Gre score submission is optional for the physics phd programs ., visit the  physics and astronomy department website for more information..

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Applied Physics Graduate Program

• Arts and Sciences, Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College of
• Engineering and Applied Science, Robert R. McCormick School of

The Graduate Program in Applied Physics offers interdisciplinary PhD research opportunities for prospective graduate students with a strong undergraduate background in physics.

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• Fax: 847-491-7820
• Buildings: 2036, Cook Hall, 2220 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208 campus map
• Web site: https://appliedphysics.northwestern.edu/

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Applied Physics Graduate Program

The Applied Physics Graduate Program is a joint PhD program between the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences that offers research opportunities with faculty in the departments of Physics & Astronomy, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Earth & Planetary Sciences, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and Materials Science & Engineering. The Engineered Quantum Systems research area unites the interests of both experimental and theoretical research groups actively investigating applications of quantum physics.

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Advancing Quantum Leadership and Community

Northwestern hosted a qed-c plenary meeting for academic, corporate, and government stakeholders.

Quantum 1.0 technologies — including lasers, MRI scanners, transistors, and semiconductor devices — paved the way for ubiquitous devices and services such as smart phones, laptops, and GPS navigation. Harnessing the quantum mechanics of sub-atomic particles — the phenomena of superposition, measurement, and entanglement — quantum 2.0 technology has the potential to revolutionize artificial intelligence, communications, information technology, manufacturing, and transportation and logistics.

To advance quantum research and technology development, Northwestern University is a founding member of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C), an alliance of academic, corporate, and government stakeholders established under the 2018 National Quantum Initiative Act with support from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to accelerate the development of quantum information science and technology applications.

QED-C aims to realize the transformative potential of quantum 2.0 technologies — from quantum computing and cryptography to quantum sensing, timing, and imaging — by supporting a robust quantum ecosystem and quantum industry supply chain and identifying strategic gaps in enabling technologies, standards and regulation, and quantum workforce development.

On March 20-21, Northwestern hosted a QED-C plenary meeting for nearly 150 members — including leaders from Northwestern Engineering and the University —to learn, network, and identify collaboration opportunities.

Northwestern President Michael H. Schill and QED-C executive director Celia Merzbacher welcomed the guests.

“One doesn't need to be an expert about quantum computing to understand that it is a critical area for Northwestern and indeed for our nation and world,” said Schill, professor of law in Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law and professor of finance and real estate in the Kellogg School of Management. “The research emerging from this field is poised to revolutionize our lives in the coming decades, and the work that all of you are involved in certainly brings needed solutions to a whole range of societal challenges that quantum computing will have the answers to.

“Quantum is a rising priority for Northwestern and for our faculty members. In the University priorities I unveiled last summer, I highlighted the importance of research and innovation in data science, artificial intelligence, sustainability, and decarbonization. All of those things are implicated in quantum computing, so I'm really excited that we're able to host this conference and that we're a founding member of this consortium.”

One doesn't need to be an expert about quantum computing to understand that it is a critical area for Northwestern and indeed for our nation and world. The research emerging from this field is poised to revolutionize our lives in the coming decades, and the work that all of you are involved in certainly brings needed solutions to a whole range of societal challenges that quantum computing will have the answers to.

Northwestern University President Michael H. Schill

Quantum computing for transportation and logistics

Quantum computing offers significant promise for optimization, real-time decision making, monitoring, and predictive modeling in the highly complex, data-driven transportation, logistics, and supply chain sectors.

On March 19, the QED-C Use Cases Technical Advisory Committee published a study, titled “ Quantum Computing for Transportation and Logistics ,” based on a workshop NUTC facilitated last October to assess the feasibility and impact of quantum computing use cases for transportation and logistics applications.

The committee — which also included NUTC senior associate director Bret Johnson ; Kevin Glynn , adjunct lecturer in Northwestern Engineering’s Master of Science in Information Technology Program ; and postdoctoral scholar Divyakant Tahlyan (MS ’21, PhD ’23) — proposed 83 potential uses, including applications with high-impact potential in the near-term such as demand forecasting and optimization of labor, routing, and warehousing.

At the QED-C plenary meeting, Glynn moderated a panel featuring Tahlyan, chief technology officer at PCS Software Yusuf Ozturk (CS PhD) and Catherine Potts of D-Wave Quantum to discuss the findings and recommendations of the study and the computational challenges within the transportation and logistics domains.

The panelists agreed that the existing level of classical computation power is insufficient to solve the algorithmic problems across the logistics and supply chain sectors and that the development and adoption of quantum computing technologies is the next step toward increasing operational efficiency, supply chain security and resilience, and efficiencies to address sustainability.

Sustainable quantum technologies

Mahmassani explained that quantum technologies can play a crucial role in enhancing sustainability efforts within transportation and logistics by optimizing energy consumption, reducing carbon emissions through more efficient routing, and improving overall resource utilization.

“What mRNA research did for COVID is similarly what quantum computing could do for climate change,” said Nivedita Arora , the Allen K. and Johnnie Cordell Breed Junior Professor of Design and assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern Engineering. “The next decade is going to be very critical, and we need to accelerate radical decarbonization efforts in electricity, transport, and manufacturing.”

Prem Kumar , professor of electrical and computer engineering, opened a dialogue in a QED-C plenary breakout session on both the applications of quantum to sustainability and the sustainability of quantum technology.

Kumar and panelist Michael R. Wasielewski are executive committee members of Northwestern’s Initiative for Quantum Information Research and Engineering (INQUIRE), a transdisciplinary hub of education and research excellence in quantum sciences across areas including material informatics and data science, material synthesis, molecular quantum transduction, nanotechnology, photonics, physics, and superconducting technologies.

“If we think that we're at an incipient stage of developing quantum technology, now is the time to really think of alternatives, to be creative and see what’s possible,” said Wasielewski, who is also the director of INQUIRE and the Center for Molecular Quantum Transduction .

Student focus on next-generation quantum technologies

Students conducting research in quantum fields from Northwestern and nearby universities were invited to participate in a special track at the plenary meeting which featured speed mentoring, a science communication workshop, and a poster session.

Gamze Gül , a fifth-year PhD student in applied physics advised by Kumar, is interested in designing quantum networking protocols to manage and control quantum networks using classical bits. She presented a poster titled “ Quantum Wrapper Networking ,” which demonstrated a novel approach to operate quantum networks that is both compatible with current fiber optic infrastructure and allows for quick adjustments to address network problems — such as loss or high traffic. By creating a package of quantum bits — or qubits — wrapped with classical bits, the qubits can be transported to their destinations without measurement or disturbance to the payload.

“Some technologies that we use in our daily lives, such as lasers, GPS, and transistors, would be impossible without a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics,” Gül said. “Today, we are entering a new era of quantum technologies that could help us understand the world we live in through quantum computing or sensing. It will be crucial to connect the distributed quantum systems.”

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Fellers Family to Lead ‘Ranger Expedition: 2024’ Homecoming Parade

April 12, 2024

Dr. David Pecha (left) presents $25 of Alva Chamber of Commerce “Chamber Bucks” to homecoming theme contest winner Patrick Wilson.

The Northwestern Oklahoma State University homecoming committee is excited to welcome current, former and future Rangers on a “Ranger Expedition: 2024” for this year’s homecoming events, Oct. 3-5.

“The committee had a large number of suggestions to consider this year,” Dr. David Pecha, Northwestern executive vice president and general chairman of the homecoming committee, said, “A huge thank you to everyone for their participation.”

This year’s theme was submitted by former Northwestern speech and theatre major Patrick Wilson, originally from Aubrey, Texas.

“My favorite part of homecoming as a student was interpreting the theme and designing the floats,” Wilson said. “I wanted something broad enough the students could have fun with.”

Wilson received $25 worth of Alva Chamber of Commerce “Chamber Bucks” as a prize for his winning submission.

Student and community groups are encouraged to create floats that incorporate this theme for Homecoming. The committee looks forward to following up the record-breaking participation in the 2023 Homecoming parade.

Leading the parade will be parade marshals and proud Northwestern alumni Kenneth and Sue Fellers. Kenneth graduated with a math and physics degree in 1963, and Sue graduated with a music degree in 1964.

Kenneth briefly worked as a math teacher for Northwestern and now farms near Burlington. Sue taught music before staying home to raise the couple’s two children, although she continued to teach private lessons and stayed active in the music at her church.

The Fellers family has been giving back to their alma mater for decades, establishing scholarship endowments for Northwestern students and sponsoring upcoming renovations for the Herod Hall auditorium.

“We are proud to be alumni of Northwestern and are grateful for the excellent education we received,” Sue said. “We appreciate this fine honor and the privilege it is to celebrate Homecoming with all of you! Ride, Rangers, Ride!”

Homecoming button sales will be announced later in the fall semester. To keep up-to-date with Homecoming events, visit www.nwosu.edu/homecoming . The web page will be updated as events are finalized.

CONTACT FOR RELEASE: Sean J. Doherty, University Relations Specialist [email protected], 580-327-8480

Alex K. Jones Is New EECS Chair in the College of Engineering and Computer Science

The College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) welcomes Alex K. Jones as the Klaus Schroder Endowed Professor for Engineering and chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department (EECS).

Jones joins Syracuse from the University of Pittsburgh, where he had a 21-year career in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) with courtesy appointments in computer science (CS) and physics and astronomy.

Alex K. Jones

“I’m thrilled to join Syracuse University at this important time,” says Jones. “The designation of Syracuse University as a core partner in a Regional Tech Hub for computer chips along, with the establishment of the new Micron fabrication facility, is a tremendous opportunity to become a national leader in the semiconductor space with direct access to opportunities through the CHIPS and Science Act. I am also excited about the outstanding potential within EECS in topics like artificial intelligence, sustainable energy, quantum science and information, and many others thanks to the talented faculty, students and staff. In partnership with ECS and Syracuse University, broadly, I think you will see great things from EECS in the coming years that will benefit our students, our city, our state and beyond.”

Jones’ research interests are broadly in the areas of computer architecture and compilers. He is best known for research and leadership advancing the field of sustainable computing. His contributions are related to applying full lifecycle thinking to the study of environmental impacts and optimizations for computing systems including projections of environmental impacts, such as with servers in data centers.

Jones demonstrated that the critical environmental impacts from manufacturing these servers can meet or exceed those from the powering their operation in data centers. This trend has started to be noted by industry over the last half decade. More importantly, in handheld systems like mobile phones, 80% or more of the greenhouse gas emissions comes from manufacturing.

Among his research contributions in this area, Jones’ work has demonstrated that leveraging existing silicon in novel ways, such as processing-in-memory, creates an opportunity to holistically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He has created a tool suite called GreenChip to help encourage the use of environmental-related metrics in the development of next generation computing systems. Jones has received a Carnegie Science Award, a Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation Faculty Fellowship and was elevated to Fellow of the IEEE for his contributions to sustainable computing.

Jones has a significant background in academic leadership. He served as Pitt’s director of computer engineering from 2011-17, a joint program comprised of faculty from the CS and ECE departments. He led the program to unprecedented growth and an increase in visibility and rankings nationally. Jones’ philosophy combined better engagement between students and faculty in the program and a curriculum that included the newest developments in the field and aspects of the excellent research undertaken by computer engineering program faculty. During his tenure as director, computer engineering at Pitt became a top 50 program nationally, where it remains today.

Following his tenure with computer engineering, Jones joined the National Science Foundation Space, High Performance and Resilient Computing (SHREC) Center and served as associate director from 2018-20. He led a project team in memory reliability for high performance and space applications. He demonstrated that off-the-shelf dynamic random access memory (DRAM) used in commodity computers had specific radiation properties such that 95—99% of the faults were from predictable locations. He developed a technique that combined a fault repository and low-level error correction that could protect standard DRAM from radiation faults in space, avoiding the need to use radiation hardened devices that are expensive and trail the state of the art by several generations.

In August 2020, Jones joined the NSF as a program manager in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate in the Computer and Network Systems (CNS) Division as part of the Computer Systems Research (CSR) cluster. A significant accomplishment was his creation of the Design for Environmental Sustainability of Computing (DESC) program. He was also the managing program director of the ATHENA AI Institute led by Duke University. In his third year at the NSF, he was elevated to serve as cluster lead for CSR. In his fourth year, he was appointed as the deputy division director for the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) Division, which is a member of the senior leadership team of the Engineering (ENG) Directorate.

While at NSF, Jones established a new personal research direction in quantum computing. Attracting nearly $3 million in funding from foundation and Department of Defense grants with his physics colleague Michael Hatridge (Pitt/Yale) and the latter with Hatridge and Robert Schoelkopf (Yale) to develop modular computer architectures, Jones’ research demonstrates better target quantum gates and interconnection topologies that can be realized with high fidelity superconducting systems. These approaches improve the size of quantum applications that can be solved in noisy quantum machines.

Jones received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University, where he was a Walter P. Murphy Fellow. His first major paper at Northwestern on translating MATLAB applications into hardware descriptions went on to be a seminal work (top 25 paper of all time) in the IEEE Field Programmable and Custom Computing Machines (FCCM) Conference. His Ph.D. work in compilation/high-level synthesis of C/C++ codes into hardware descriptions crystallized his interest in compilation and configurable computing.  This work informed some of his early work at Pitt in design automation of coarse-grain reconfigurable computing fabrics and radio frequency identification (RFID) devices. Compilation remains a core focus of Jones’ research as applied to configurable architectures and most recently in terms of programming quantum systems (transpilation).

In his spare time, Jones is a freelance clarinetist. In Pittsburgh he was the principal clarinetist of the Pittsburgh Philharmonic, where he has been a featured soloist, served briefly as its artistic director, and served as guest conductor. He also enjoys downhill skiing.

Alex Dunbar

• Five Students Receive Prestigious Critical Language Scholarship Monday, April 15, 2024, By Kelly Homan Rodoski
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• Annual Three-Minute Thesis Competition Provides Research Capsule Talks Monday, April 15, 2024, By Diane Stirling
• Alex K. Jones Is New EECS Chair in the College of Engineering and Computer Science Monday, April 15, 2024, By Alex Dunbar

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APPLIED PHYSICS GRADUATE PROGRAM Joint PhD Program Between Weinberg College and Mccormick School of Engineering

View course descriptions and class schedules for the current or past academic year.

Professor Qi Zhou honored with University Faculty Scholar award

Qi Zhou , professor of Physics and Astronomy with the Purdue University College of Science, has been selected as a University Faculty Scholar by the Office of the Provost.

Zhou’s research interests include synthetic gauge fields for ultracold atoms, strongly interacting bosons and fermions, quantum nonequilibrium dynamics, and connections between few-body and many-body physics. Qi Zhou received his Ph.D. degree from The Ohio State University and his B.S. degree from Tsinghua University, China.

The University Faculty Scholars Program recognizes outstanding faculty members who are on an accelerated path for academic distinction. Recipients of this honor have the rank of tenured associate or full professor and have been in that rank for no more than five years. Faculty scholars are nominated by their academic areas, reviewed by a committee in the  College of Science , and approved by the  provost . Faculty Scholars are appointed for a five-year term and receive an annual $10,000 discretionary allocation to support their research. The program was created in 1998. Zhou will begin his five-year term on July 1, 2024.

In a letter of award recognition, Lucy Flesch, the Frederick L. Hovde Dean of the College of Science, says, “the college awards committee recognized your outstanding contributions to synthetic gauge fields, universal relations in dilute quantum systems, and non-equilibrium quantum dynamics. Congratulations once again on this well-deserved honor. My best wishes to you for your continued success in your academic endeavors.”

About the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University   

Purdue’s Department of Physics and Astronomy has a rich and long history dating back to 1904. Our faculty and students are exploring nature at all length scales, from the subatomic to the macroscopic and everything in between. With an excellent and diverse community of faculty, postdocs and students who are pushing new scientific frontiers, we offer a dynamic learning environment, an inclusive research community and an engaging network of scholars.  

Physics and Astronomy is one of the seven departments within the Purdue University College of Science. World-class research is performed in astrophysics, atomic and molecular optics, accelerator mass spectrometry, biophysics, condensed matter physics, quantum information science, and particle and nuclear physics. Our state-of-the-art facilities are in the Physics Building, but our researchers also engage in interdisciplinary work at Discovery Park District at Purdue, particularly the Birck Nanotechnology Center and the Bindley Bioscience Center. We also participate in global research including at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, many national laboratories (such as Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermilab, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Stanford Linear Accelerator, etc.), the James Webb Space Telescope, and several observatories around the world.   

Contributors:    

Written by  Cheryl Pierce ,  Communications Specialist

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• CAREER COLUMN
• 08 April 2024

How we landed job interviews for professorships straight out of our PhD programmes

• Violeta Rodriguez 0 &
• Qimin Liu 1

Violeta Rodriguez is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Qimin Liu is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University in Massachusetts.

By staying organized in their job hunt, both authors received several job offers. Credit: Getty

We met during the last year of our PhD training, after securing placements at the University of Illinois Chicago’s Department of Psychiatry for our predoctoral internships — the final step of our clinical doctoral programmes. V. R. came from the University of Georgia in Athens and was pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology, and Q. L. came from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and was working towards a PhD in clinical science and quantitative methods. It was amid the academic rigour and personal stress of the last year of our programmes that we became friends. We bonded over being immigrants and not speaking English as our first language while navigating the complexities of academia. We both wanted to forgo postdoctoral training and instead immediately become junior professors. Now, we’re assistant professors: V. R. is at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Q. L. is at Boston University in Massachusetts.

The odds we faced in the academic job market had seemed insurmountable, particularly to immigrants, and we had been cautioned by mentors and even junior faculty members about the challenge ahead. But we succeeded: we received a combined total of 27 in-person interviews, leading to 15 tenure-track assistant-professor offers across departments of psychology, paediatrics or psychiatry, schools of education and academic medical centres. (You can check out our hints for nailing job interviews in our other article .)

How to move labs

Despite the positive outcome, the process was stressful, fast and unpredictable. Our friendship became a sanctuary: amid the daunting job market and our own self-doubt, we understood and encouraged each other. We want to offer what our friendship provided us — understanding, support and encouragement — to researchers hoping to stay in academia after earning a PhD, so we are sharing our reflections and insights.

We must first make clear: no amount of job-search tips and tricks can substitute for good science and a strong publication record. To gauge our readiness, we looked up the CV of the most recent hire in each department that we applied to. We also made sure we had backup offers of postdoctoral positions. While navigating this process, we learnt that institutions were interested in candidates who planned to pursue external funding.

Qimin Liu is now an assistant professor. Credit: Qimin Liu

We had both obtained federal and private funding before — making us more competitive. We urge aspiring professors to prioritize their research contributions, external fellowship and grant applications and academic achievements above all.

To readers who’ve successfully navigated this process, many of our reflections and insights could seem obvious. However, this kind of advice can be the hardest to follow during a fast-moving job hunt, with several moving pieces involved and new considerations and job offers or advertisements emerging unexpectedly. Treat this as a checklist before beginning to fill out job applications.

Tips and tricks

Start your search early. Allow ample time to prepare for the job hunt; research potential options, such as jobs in academic medical centres, standard department positions or tenure-track jobs in related fields; and submit applications. Plan to reply to job ads long before the first deadline. Starting early gives you time to collect and incorporate feedback from mentors and colleagues.

Training: Free course on peer review

Prepare your networks. The academic job market can be unpredictable, with opportunities emerging unexpectedly. It is important to think about who can write letters for you — sometimes at short notice. Most of our applications required three letters of recommendation from all applicants. Others requested letters from only shortlisted candidates.

Plan ahead. The final drafts of materials took, on average, one to two months in total to prepare and polish. The initial drafts took about 8 hours, and the research statement required a total of 16 hours. (The research statement summarizes your research programme, the work you’ve done so far and what you plan to pursue in future. It can also highlight why a particular institution is well-suited to support your work.) Preparing drafted statements in advance made it easier to adapt them to different positions later — tweaking materials for specific positions took 30–60 minutes per application.

Research potential job opportunities. Don’t just rely on word-of-mouth or googling specific positions to find things you’re interested in applying to. Use online job boards (such as HigherEdJobs or Nature Careers ), and tap into your professional network by sending e-mails or LinkedIn messages to your mentors and colleagues, letting them know you’re on the job market. Scour social media and department websites to find available positions. We both posted on X (formerly Twitter) that we were job hunting, and several people reached out with opportunities.

Develop job application ‘templates’. Create a set of well-crafted templates for your application materials, such as cover letters and statements, on which you can easily fill in your name, relevant details and where you’ve previously worked. Having adaptable documents allowed us to respond quickly to new postings.

Tailor your application materials. Templates can take you only so far. Take the time to customize your application materials, including your CV, cover letter (each of ours was one page long) and research statement, to highlight your relevant skills, experiences and research contributions. Tailoring your materials to each position demonstrates genuine interest and increases your chances of standing out to hiring committees. Generic applications are easy for hiring managers to reject. Mentioning centres or institutes that align with your research; available resources, such as early-career programmes, that you want to take advantage of; and the names of people whom you are interested in working with can help to personalize your application materials.

Stay organized. Maintain a well-organized system to track application deadlines, requirements and submission statuses. Be ready to remind your letter writers to submit their recommendations. Keep a calendar or spreadsheet to ensure that all required materials are submitted on time and to track when to follow up. An example spreadsheet is provided below.

Practise for interviews and job talks. Run mock interviews with your peers or mentors. Practise answering common interview questions and develop concise, compelling responses that highlight your expertise, teaching abilities and fit. Treat these seriously — you’re likely to be nervous in the real interview, so try to recreate that while rehearsing, perhaps by inviting a relatively unknown colleague or professor to join the practice runs. V. R. recorded her job talk on Zoom and sent it to others for feedback.

Practising your job talk — a presentation of your academic research that is often a spoken version of your research statement — until you know it backwards and forwards will prepare you for the unexpected. In addition, rehearsing how you plan to respond to different questions, and practising saying that you want people to hold their questions until the end, can be helpful.

Prepare a start-up budget to get your lab running. Many academic positions include a start-up fund for incoming faculty members. It is typically used for summer salary and staffing or research costs. You might be asked for an estimated budget before, during or after the interview stage — so you should have one ready in advance. When preparing your budget, keep in mind the spending norms at the institution and for your discipline. Ask for more than you think you need, because this amount will often be reduced during negotiations.

As we look back on our job-hunting experiences, we are reminded of how much we grew in this process, in ways that are not related to just our jobs — and this growth continued in our interviews .

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01044-1

This is an article from the Nature Careers Community, a place for Nature readers to share their professional experiences and advice. Guest posts are encouraged .

Supplementary Information

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Degree requirements.

The following requirements are in addition to, or further elaborate upon, those requirements outlined in  The Graduate School Policy Guide .

The Applied Physics Program does not offer a terminal master's program, and only students who intend to pursue the PhD are admitted.  However, PhD students who satisfactorily complete the first year of classes and pass a comprehensive examination are eligible to receive a Master of Science degree.

The formal requirements for a PhD in Applied Physics are:  

• The core courses
• The oral qualifying exam
• The teaching experience
• The prospectus or thesis proposal
• The thesis defense

Core Courses

Total Units Required: 10

List of course options for Computational Methods of Applied Physics

List of course options for experimental methods of applied physics, oral qualifying exam.

Students are required to pass a qualifying exam before advancing to the second year of the program. This exam takes the form of a short presentation made to an examining committee, followed by a closed question session before the committee. There is no written qualifier.

Teaching Experience

One quarter of teaching experience is required by the Graduate School. Since AP is a graduate-only program, our students gain this experience by serving as TAs in a variety of undergraduate departments.

Prospectus or Thesis Proposal and Defense

Students must submit and defend their thesis proposal before the end of the spring quarter of the third year. This includes a written proposal and a 30 mins defense followed by questions from the faculty committee.

Thesis Defense

Each PhD candidate must pass a Thesis Defense based on the work presented in the candidate's dissertation. The faculty committee assembled previously for the thesis proposal and defense conducts the examination. The examination involves a mandatory open and publicized oral presentation and discussion during the first hour, followed by a closed examination with only the faculty committee.

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PDF of the 2023-2024 The Graduate Catalog.