Ph.D. Dissertation and Final Exam

After completing the Qualifying Exam, the official Dissertation Advisory Committee is formed and the remaining years of study are spent working on developing the research project that will form the Ph.D. dissertation. The Dissertation Advisory Committee must consist of a minimum of 3 and maximum of 4 tenured/tenure-track faculty assistant professors or higher. One of these is the thesis advisor. While the Dissertation Advisory Committee is distinct from and need not overlap with the Qualifying Exam Committee, often two to three of the members come from the student’s Qualifying Exam Committee. Rules for formation of the Dissertation Advisory Committee are in alignment with those stated for the Part II Qualifying Exam Committee, so that the transition to forming your Dissertation Advisory Committee should be seamless provided your committee members are not changing. The rules are as follows:

Dissertation Advisory Committee

The University Council on Graduate Studies has designated rules for the Dissertation Advisory Committee composition. The student’s committee MUST consist of 4 tenured or tenure-track faculty of assistant professor or higher rank and is subject to approval from the NGP Director. The thesis advisor is a voting member of the Dissertation Advisory Committee and 2 of the remaining 3 members are chosen by the student in consultation with their thesis advisor. The advisor and second committee member are internal and must be from the NGP faculty list, while the third committee member must be external to the NGP, typically selected from the University of Rochester Faculty at large. Alternatively, a faculty expert from outside the University of Rochester may be invited to join the Examining Committee as the external member with prior written approval from the NGP Director and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies. At least 4 months prior to date of defense, the student with support from their advisor and/or program director, must identify a faculty member to serve as Chair for their defense. The Chair must be a current full-time tenure-track University of Rochester faculty member at assistant professor rank or higher who is external to the program, and without a significant scholarly relationship with the candidate or other committee members. The student must include the Chair in planning for specific dates and times for their defense. All committee members will have a vote in the evaluation process. A single co-advisor is also permitted and would serve as a 5th voting member of the committee. Additional committee members beyond these five can participate in the process; however, these additional members will not have a vote. The rules for Dissertation Advisory committee formation for both the neuroscience and NBA tracks are identical with the exception that, for the NBA track, the advisor must have a primary or secondary appointment in the Department of Neuroscience while the selected internal committee member MUST also have a primary appointment in the Department of Neuroscience.

More detailed information about the Dissertation Advisory Committee and process can be found in the Regulations and University Policies Concerning Graduate Study.

It is required that prior to the thesis defense, all students will have published or submitted for publication at least one first-author manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal describing their research findings. Share first co-authorship is acceptable. Review articles or published meeting presentations are NOT sufficient to fulfill this requirement. After the advisor and Thesis Committee approve the completion of the thesis research, the student submits a dissertation of his or her findings. In the form of an open lecture, the student publicly presents his or her thesis research and in a closed exam defends those findings to the Thesis Committee. 

See the Guidelines for preparation and registration of the Ph.D. thesis defense.