university of alabama dissertation committee

• FAFSA Updates
• Interactive
• JagTran Tracker
• JagMail Login
• Faculty & Staff
• Directories
• Faculty/Staff

• Graduate School

Thesis/Dissertation Preparation

TURNITIN LINK INCLUDING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THESIS/DISSERTATION COMMITTEE CHAIRS

The Graduate School is accepting all thesis/dissertation related documentation via email to [email protected] or [email protected] .  Electronic signatures will be accepted on the required forms.  

Please select the link below to access the official USA Thesis and Dissertation Guide. This guide gives the required process to successfully complete the master's thesis and the doctoral dissertation at USA. Please note the rules and requirements shown in this document must be followed to achieve a thesis or dissertation that will meet the standards for final approval.

Students are welcome to call the Graduate School office at (251) 460-6310 to set up an appointment to discuss any questions they may have with the thesis/dissertation process at any time during the academic year.

Submission Dates

For information on due dates for each semester of the academic year, please check the following dates or link to the current Academic Calendar .

Spring 2024

• First submission due date 3/25/24 (Students submit their successfully defended thesis or dissertation to the Graduate School for review)
• Final submission due date 4/15/24 (Students have made any requested edits, have resubmitted their paper, and have received final clearance to proceed with finalizing their submission)

Summer 2024

• First submission due date 6/24/24 (Students submit their successfully defended thesis or dissertation to the Graduate School for review)
• Final submission due date 7/8/24 (Students have made any requested edits, have resubmitted their paper, and have received final clearance to proceed with finalizing their submission)
• First submission due date 10/21/24 (Students submit their successfully defended thesis or dissertation to the Graduate School for review)
• Final submission due date 11/18/24 (Students have made any requested edits, have resubmitted their paper, and have received final clearance to proceed with finalizing their submission)

Spring 2025

• First submission due date 3/24/25 (Students submit their successfully defended thesis or dissertation to the Graduate School for review)
• Final submission due date 4/14/25 (Students have made any requested edits, have resubmitted their paper, and have received final clearance to proceed with finalizing their submission)

Summer 2025

• First submission due date 6/23/25 (Students submit their successfully defended thesis or dissertation to the Graduate School for review)
• Final submission due date 7/14/25 (Students have made any requested edits, have resubmitted their paper, and have received final clearance to proceed with finalizing their submission)

USA Thesis and Dissertation Guide

• Guide for Preparing the Prospectus 
• Guide for Preparing Theses and Dissertations 
• Thesis - Dissertation Timeline
• Thesis/Dissertation  Template 
• Thesis/Dissertation Submission Form (PDF)    - This form is due when you submit your paper to the Graduate School. Students are advised to have this form ready to be completed at their defense.
• The Top 15 Errors Most Frequently Encountered on Theses and Dissertations
• Latex template - please contact the Graduate School for this template to be emailed to you in a zip file.
• T/D FAQ'S  
• Sample Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval Notice  - IF your research involves HUMAN SUBJECTS, you MUST obtain IRB approval https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/research/compliance/humansubjects  BEFORE your research begins. This form MUST be listed in your Appendix section. See sample thesis on this page for formatting.
• Line Spacing Template  
• Subdivisions Formatting Guide
• Sample Thesis by Kari Servold   - Please note that Ms. Servold did not utilize subdivision headings and only used chapter headings in her paper.  To see how subdivision headings should be organized in Table of Contents and in your paper, see the thesis template document listed above.

Zotero is an excellent and free tool to use for your citations and references.

Some graduate students preparing a thesis or dissertation may find it useful to look at a previous thesis that has been through the approval process. A past student has graciously given permission to use the attached thesis for this purpose. You should follow the USA Thesis and Dissertation Guide to understand all the requirements for a thesis or dissertation document, but the attached model may be useful to visualize the document that you are preparing. The document can serve as a template to help you properly set up your own document. Note that the Thesis and Dissertation Guide allows some variation as to preferred styles in different academic disciplines, so depending on your discipline there will be some variation from this sample document.

  Opportunities Are Endless When Your Efforts Are Focused.  

The University of South Alabama provides equal educational opportunities to and is open and accessible to all qualified students without regard to race, color, creed, national origin, sex, veteran status or qualified handicap/disability, with respect to all of its programs and activities.

Alum Alexander Levine Honored with Charles A. Caramello Distinguished Dissertation Award

University of Maryland Department of Computer Science alum Alexander Levine (Ph.D. '23, computer science) has been awarded the Charles A. Caramello Distinguished Dissertation Award for his dissertation titled "Scalable Methods for Robust Machine Learning." Levine, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin , focused on developing machine learning models that maintain accuracy amid distortions. The award ceremony is scheduled for Tuesday, May 14, at the Stamp Student Union. The award is for the dissertation he completed in 2023.

The Charles A. Caramello Distinguished Dissertation Award is given annually by the Graduate School to recognize dissertations that provide highly original contributions that make an unusually significant contribution to the discipline. Levine is among four recipients of the award this year.

Awardees receive an honorarium of $1,000. Additionally, they may be nominated for further recognition at the national level through the CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award competition, which selects outstanding dissertations from across the country to honor achievements in graduate research.

“I feel honored that my work has been recognized by this award,” Levine said. “I am deeply thankful for all of the support I received during my time at UMD from my advisor, my collaborators, my dissertation committee and the rest of the UMD computer science community. I am fortunate to have worked with such talented people on such interesting problems.”

Advised by Associate Professor Soheil Feizi , Levine's dissertation introduces innovative methods for ensuring the robustness of machine learning models, specifically in scenarios where input data may be subtly altered or distorted, including malicious tampering. This research is particularly relevant as machine learning applications become increasingly prevalent in areas requiring high reliability and security.

Levine explained that practitioners can implement these systems more confidently in safety-critical applications by developing machine learning techniques with well-understood robustness guarantees. He noted that the capabilities of machine-learning-based systems have expanded dramatically in just the last couple of years, increasing their use in various sectors. Levine emphasized the growing importance of ensuring these systems' robustness as their applications broaden.

Levine is currently expanding his research focus.

“At UT Austin, my research focus has shifted to representation learning for sequential decision-making tasks,” Levine shared. “In particular, I have been working on frameworks that allow deep learning to be used in combination with search-based planning techniques, so that we can benefit from both the powerful capabilities of modern deep learning and the interpretability, flexibility and efficiency of classical planning methods. ”

Levine received the Larry S. Davis Doctoral Dissertation Award in the Fall of 2023 . Named in honor of Computer Science Professor Emeritus Larry Davis , the award, given by UMD’s Department of Computer Science, highlighted dissertations that were exceptional in their technical depth and potential for significant impact.

—Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications 

The Department welcomes comments, suggestions and corrections.  Send email to editor [-at-] cs [dot] umd [dot] edu .