PhD Programs

Distinguished faculty in these areas enable the program to attract outstanding graduate students who excel in national research grant competitions. Students find a supportive environment, accessible faculty, and superb research resources. Most students enter directly into the Ph.D. program and earn a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree along the way after completing the necessary courses and paperwork. Some students enter the Ph.D. program with a Master's degree in hand and may apply to transfer up to 24 credits from graduate anthropology courses taken elsewhere in the last six years. Students may also apply to the master's program, either making an M.A. their ultimate or "terminal" goal, or reapplying to the Ph.D. program after completion of the M.A.

The school of graduate studies at Rutgers mandates a minimum of three years of full-time study for the PhD, consisting of two years of coursework (48 credits), and at least one year of research (24 credits), culminating in the dissertation. Most students, particularly in the humanities and social science, require more than three years to complete all requirements. In the PhD program in Art History, most students require either two or three years to complete coursework and a minimum of two or three years to complete fieldwork and writing for the dissertation.

The Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology (CCB) is committed to providing exceptional education through interdisciplinary coursework and laboratory training of research scientists. With state-of-the-art research facilities and internationally recognized faculty, CCB offers the tools and collaboration needed to develop and explore groundbreaking ideas across the many fields touched by chemistry. CCB offers a rigorous Ph.D. program that balances directed research with coursework to prepare graduates for careers in industry, academia, and government. The department also offers two M.S. tracks (coursework or research thesis) designed for industrial chemists seeking to enrich their knowledge base or to better prepare recent undergraduates for a doctoral program.

The Graduate Program in Comparative Literature offers opportunities for talented and independent students to explore questions about the nature and history of global expressive forms. Transcending national and linguistic boundaries, and drawing on a richly diverse faculty, the program helps students analyze the complex field of relations underlying concepts such as genre, medium, movement, and canon. In this respect, areas of particular importance for the program include literary theory, the social history of cultural production, and the relationship of literature with other fields. Beyond the provinces of academic specialization, however, it is the very distinction between literary and nonliterary discourses that Comparative Literature puts in question, and thus redefines, through a curriculum which, while carefully constructed, allows students to follow their own interests.

Students enrolled in the Ph.D. program are expected to acquire a broad knowledge in all areas of computer science, and an overall perspective of the field, its structure, and its problems. They are expected to study at least one subfield in considerable depth, and to make substantial contributions to that subfield through creative research and serious scholarship. Students should advance the basic understanding of information processes and contribute to the creation and consolidation of knowledge in computer science. In addition, they should be able to see and understand new problems between different areas within computer science as well as between computer science and other fields, to find imaginative solutions for them, and to carry them through.

The purpose of our graduate program is to train students to become proficient in modern economics. Students must master the analytic insights and tools of microeconomics, macroeconomics, and econometrics. Doctoral students specialize by taking two of the advanced fields of study offered by the department.

The English Graduate Program offers comprehensive training in all the major periods of British, U.S., and global Anglophone literature, as well as the history of the book, literary and cultural theory, postcolonial studies, digital humanities, performance studies, and feminist and sexuality studies. One of our particular strengths is African American literary studies, in which we have a large group of faculty and students. Our superb faculty, our comprehensive and integrated curriculum, our structured mentoring programs, and our broad range of pedagogical opportunities and training all give our students excellent preparation for work in the academy and beyond. We are proud of our many graduates who have secured jobs teaching literature at a range of institutions in the U.S. and abroad, as well as of those who have used their training to find work in fields like secondary education, digital humanities, writing instruction, public humanities projects, education consulting, libraries, and archives, and more.

Doctoral candidates in French at Rutgers receive rigorous and broad training in various aspects of French language, literature in and outside France, theory, literary and cultural criticism, and cinema. Doctoral candidates complete 16 courses beyond the bachelor's degree or equivalent; at least eleven of these must be taken at Rutgers. The qualifying examination is designed to develop in-depth knowledge of two subject areas and to provide a head start on doctoral research. Preparation for the qualifying examination allows students to choose a field and design a research topic under the close guidance of advisors. Candidates in the doctoral program specialize in literary and cultural topics from the Middle Ages to the present. For a list of theses recently defended in the Department and those currently under way, please click here. Exceptional students may be allowed to pursue a joint doctorate with a French university under a "cotutelle" agreement.

Faculty in the Genetics department typically belong to the Molecular Biosciences graduate programs of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics or Cell and Developmental Biology. Students wishing to pursue a Ph.D. or M.S. in these programs apply through the Graduate Programs in Molecular Biosciences at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

The PhD Program in Geography at Rutgers emphasizes preparation for a research-oriented career in academia, public service, or the private sector. While most applicants to the PhD program have at least one prior degree in geography, applicants with degrees in other disciplines are nonetheless encouraged to apply. The PhD differs qualitatively from bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in its emphasis on research and the dissertation as a major, original contribution to knowledge. Accordingly, the doctoral program in Geography at Rutgers emphasizes preparation in the student’s area (subfield) of specialization, research as a problem-solving activity, and preparation of research results for publication.

Combining the study of German literature, art, and culture with intellectual history and critical thought, this program offers a cutting-edge graduate education while sustaining a wide range of innovative approaches and comparative analyses.

The Rutgers University History Department at New Brunswick provides outstanding academic opportunities for advanced study leading to the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. These programs are driven by a distinguished faculty of over sixty historians whose interests and courses cover almost every period and area of study. The department is particularly noted for its strengths both in traditional regional specialties (the histories of the U.S., Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East) and in thematic, transnational and comparative fields, including the history of Atlantic cultures and the African diaspora; women's and gender history; social and cultural-intellectual history; African-American history; comparative and global history; and the history of science, technology, environment, and health; and Global Asias. Recent surveys of history graduate programs by U.S. News and World Report have consistently ranked our programs in women's and gender history, Modern U.S. history, and African-American history as among the very finest in the nation.

The program is structured by the guiding idea that linguistics is a unified discipline, with cross- fertilization between sub-disciplines a major source of growth and innovation. Students study each of the three core areas intensively over the first year and a half, and then specialize according to their interests. From the start, the curriculum is designed to facilitate original research: in addition to course- related work, students present two qualifying papers, written in close consultation with faculty, one at the end of the second year, the other at the end of the third year. Dissertation research and writing take up the fourth and fifth years. Students are encouraged to gain expertise in other areas related to linguistics. Many students work closely with faculty in Cognitive Psychology, Philosophy, or Computer Science. The Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS) supports a Cognitive Science Certificate Program to be pursued alongside the Ph.D., which offers special opportunities for research in psycholinguistics and computational linguistics.

This is a rigorous program in Mathematics consisting of extensive course work and original research in one of the department's many fields of expertise leading to a dissertation. The program is typically completed in five or six years. Applicants to the program should have a strong undergraduate background in Mathematics.

The Department of Philosophy at New Brunswick provides outstanding opportunities for advanced study leading to the Ph.D. degree. Our program is driven by a distinguished faculty of over twenty philosophers whose interests cover almost every subdiscipline. Our program is ranked first in the United States by the National Research Council, and in the Philosophical Gourmet Report we are ranked second overall in the United States, and first or second internationally in the areas of applied ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, normative ethics, philosophy of cognitive science, philosophy of language, philosophy of law, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of race.

The doctoral program is designed to prepare students for a career as a independent researcher in one of the frontier areas of research in physics or astrophysics. Upon completion of coursework in one of two tracks, physics or astrophysics, students begin research under the guidance of a faculty member in order to develop a deep understanding of the foundational principles and limits of modern knowledge in a program subfield. Students develop skills needed to enable them to pursue original research, which are also transferable to non-academic research. Completion of a thesis based on original research is required for the Ph.D.

The PhD program provides cutting-edge training in a supportive environment. Our approach is methodologically pluralistic, encouraging the use of both quantitative and qualitative approaches to research. Classes are small and students work closely with faculty in their field, who often co-author articles with their students, in addition to providing mentorship throughout students’ own research. All students who are admitted to the program are offered funding packages that cover tuition expenses and a combination of fellowship stipends and positions as teaching assistants (TAs) or research assistants (GAs) to provide living expenses. Funding is limited, and so we also admit students who are supported by outside scholarships. Being located within easy reach of New York, Trenton, Newark, Philadelphia and Washington, the program has extensive resources for pursuing advanced studies and research in politics. Rutgers is a member of the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium, which allows our graduate students to take courses at other universities in the area, including Columbia University, New York University, the New School, and Princeton University.

The Department of Psychology confers a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree, along with a Master's of Science (M.S.) degree. Importantly, we do not offer a stand-alone master's degree. Most students enter the program with a Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts degree. All students participate in scientific research and the discovery process. Each graduate student works with a primary mentor in one of the four areas within the department, as listed below. Our faculty members have a strong and consistent record of producing original research and discovery along with federal and private grant support. Many faculty have established collaborations with other institutions and units within Rutgers University, including the Brain Health Institute, Center for Cognitive Science, Institute for Health, Center for Addiction and Alcohol Studies, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, among others. Once admitted into our program, students conduct original research alongside the faculty while taking required and elective courses. Candidacy for the doctorate is granted following successful completion of course requirements, a master's thesis, and the qualifying examination. The graduate program is designed as a 5-year program. Only those individuals willing to work full-time toward the doctorate are encouraged to apply.

Sociologists study groups, organizations, and societies, and how people interact within those contexts. We analyze how larger social and cultural structures shape individual opportunities, attitudes, and behavior. This lens is critical for understanding our increasingly diverse and global society and the complex inequalities that characterize it. Rutgers Sociology is a broad and eclectic department organized around several overlapping research areas. We encourage our students to find their own distinct location amidst the department's rich intersections. Our Graduate Program trains them to become competent, creative, and distinctive working sociologists, whether they go on to work in academia or in non-academic settings. Our faculty conducts research that reflects the remarkable substantive range of our discipline and uses a wide variety of both quantitative and qualitative methods, including the latest statistical modeling techniques, innovative computational and network-analytic approaches, in-depth interviews and ethnography, detailed comparative historical inquiry, and sophisticated survey analysis. Given our longstanding emphasis on writing, most students complete our program with one or more peer-reviewed publications, some in leading journals in the field. Our graduate students regularly win national paper awards, competitive fellowships, and awards from regional associations.

Our graduate programs offer a wide range of courses, which reflect the faculty’s varied interests, methodologies, and critical perspectives. Students are encouraged to undertake interdisciplinary research projects. Our graduate faculty is research active, and the cordial intellectual climate within the department is reflected in the steady participation in conferences, symposia, and publishing. We are committed to our students’ professional development in each field of specialization.

The degree of Doctor of Philosophy is a research degree, conferred in recognition of marked ability and scholarship and high scholastic attainment and original research in Statistics and Biostatistics. The degree is conferred after successful completion of an acceptable thesis summarizing substantial results of original research work relevant to Statistics and/or Biostatistics. Thesis work will be done with general guidance and supervised by the candidate's Thesis Advisor. Areas of specialization for research include any topic suitable for research in applied or theoretical statistics, including statistical inference, estimation theory, hypothesis testing, decision theory, empirical Bayes and Bayes methods, regression analysis, analysis of variance, statistical computing, experimental design, multivariate analysis, nonparametric statistics, sequential analysis, quality control theory, time series analysis, applied probability, stochastic processes, and probability theory.

As an interdisciplinary Ph.D. with 60 graduate faculty who work in a wide array of departments and schools across the university, the Ph.D. program in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies provides advanced and systematic course work investigating the multidimensional aspects of gender and sexuality. Approaching feminist knowledge production from multi-cultural and multi-racial perspectives, the program emphasizes the ways in which gender and sexuality have produced--and continue to produce—decisive and oftentimes unjust social and cultural effects in diverse historical and geographical contexts, The graduate course offerings are designed to explore the intricate connections between feminist theory and practice in order to illuminate how genders and sexualities intersect with other socially and culturally produced identities in both local and global contexts. The program requirements include 21 hours of core courses taken within the WGSS department and 18 hours of course work that can be located in units across the university, as well as in the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium (https://grad.rutgers.edu/academics/inter- university-exchange). In addition to course work, the Ph.D. requires the successful completion of a written qualifying and a comprehensive oral examination, and a doctoral dissertation. Core courses include Feminist Genealogies, Feminist Theory, Feminist Methodologies, Feminist Knowledge Production, Feminist Pedagogies, and two proseminars from the areas...