Current Students

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Advisor Selection

You should identify a doctoral advisor by the beginning of your first spring semester, or earlier. Due to the research intensive nature of the degree, it is difficult to make progress in the program without an advisor who can provide you with initial research direction. If students wish to change their advisor selection later in the program, they may do so in consultation with the program director.

The Doctoral Committee

Your dissertation committee is composed of your research advisor and two other members of the program. It is required to include one individual from outside your advisor’s department.

The Qualifying Examination

The qualifying examination is aimed at your ability to synthesize research results from your own experiments, those of your colleagues and the literature, as well as your general knowledge of engineering and science. The expectations of basic knowledge will depend on your background, and students should discuss the expectations with committee members in advance. The examination includes a written and an oral component, and you will be judged based on your cumulative performance in both phases.

The qualifying examination is administered by a committee of three faculty, at least one of whom is from a department other than your dissertation advisor. Typically, this same committee will administer your candidacy examination and your final dissertation defense, but in some cases, it may change in response to changes in your research direction.

Written Qualifying Examination

Students must write a paper of no more than ten pages that describes the work you completed in your first two semesters in the program. The paper should focus on:

• The significance of your work in the context of biomedical research
• The methods you employed in your research, highlighting the basic engineering science
• The results you obtained
• An in depth discussion of your results in relationship to the field

This document is not a proposal of future research or of your proposed dissertation studies. You may wish suggest future research directions that would answer open or controversial questions that arose in your work or that are in the literature, but these may or may not be part of your own doctoral research.

Oral Qualifying Examination

The oral examination is CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC.

The oral examination commences with a presentation of the research document by the student. The faculty committee will then question the student. Questions may be based on the presentation and written document, but in general should also cover basic material related to the field and courses taken during the first year in order to judge the students technical capabilities. The questions are not limited to the topics in your presentation. Because students will have differing undergraduate backgrounds and coursework, they should discuss the scope of the material they are expected to know with their examination committee prior to the oral examination.

The Candidacy Examination

This examination is conducted according the rules outlined by the graduate school. The candidacy examination for the bioengineering degree is comprised of both a written proposal, and an oral examination. Note that these are separate parts of the same examination, and you must pass both of them to proceed to doctoral candidacy.

Written Candidacy Examination

The written portion of the candidacy examination is a research proposal. The proposal should have a one page abstract describing the background of the proposed research, the specific questions to be addressed, and a brief description of the impact of the research on your field. A single page of specific aims should include at least one hypothesis or objective, and a short (usually enumerated) description of the steps you will take to address it. The body of the document can contain no more than 20 single spaced pages, exclusive of references.

Oral Candidacy Examination

The oral portion of the candidacy examination will commence with a presentation by the student. This portion of the examination is open to all Notre Dame students and faculty. Following the presentation, all but the examination committee will be excused, and the candidate will field specific questions from the faculty. Questions may be related to your proposal, presentation, or general knowledge of the field as the committee members deem appropriate. Students should discuss the expected range of questions with their committee members in order to be properly prepared for the questioning.

©2011 Bioengineering Graduate Program
University of Notre Dame
Designed by Walker Anderson