Computer Science PhD

Major: Computer Science
Degree Awarded: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Calendar Type: Quarter
Minimum Required Credits: 90.0 (post-bachelor's) or 45.0 (post-master's)
Co-op Option: None
Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code: 11.0701
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code: 11-3021; 15-1111; 15-1131; 15-1132; 15-1199

About the Program

Students enrolled in the PhD in Computer Science program are expected to become an expert in a research area in computer science or a related interdisciplinary field. They are expected to conduct research in considerable depth and make substantial contributions through creative developments and serious scholarship. The program is designed for students to ensure core knowledge of the fundamental computer science areas and to conduct cutting-edge research at the forefront of a selected area. Students are prepared for computer science leadership careers in industry, research, government and education and for interdisciplinary work using computer science.

Additional Information

For more information about these programs, including admission requirements, visit the College of Computing & Informatics website.

Degree Requirements

Students in the PhD program move through several milestones on their way to completion of the degree: (1) qualifying requirements in which the student takes courses to ensure breadth and depth of knowledge across areas of computer science; (2) a candidacy exam in which the student performs an in-depth study of a particular area of research; (3) a thesis proposal in which the student provides a detailed overview of their planned dissertation work; and finally (4) a thesis defense in which the student presents their completed dissertation work. Upon entering the PhD program, students work with a Graduate Advisor to develop a plan of study (filed no later than the end of the first term); this plan can be revised and brought up-to-date when necessary, and serves as a blueprint for planning out the timely and successful completion of all milestones.

PhD Students Admitted with Post-Masters Status: Students entering with a master's degree in computer science or a closely related field will be considered a postmasters PhD student and will only be required to complete a total of 45.0 credit hours, in accordance with University policy. Students who are admitted for PhD study with “post-masters” status must take 12.0 credits of graduate coursework and pass each of these courses with a grade of B+ or higher to fulfill the qualifying requirements. Courses are to be chosen in consultation with the Graduate Studies Committee. A post-masters PhD student must meet all other degree milestones (candidacy exam, thesis proposal and thesis defense).

Post-Bachelor's Student Requirements

Post-Master's Student Requirements

All post-bachelors PhD students must take 4 courses as part of the Breadth Requirements, and an additional 4 courses as part of the Depth Requirements. Students must pass each of the 4 Breadth courses with a grade of B+ or higher and must achieve a GPA of 3.5 or higher across all 8 courses. Normally, a student will satisfy the Breadth Requirements by the end of their first year in the program and will satisfy the Depth Requirements by the end of their second year.

-  If a student fails to meet the minimum grade or GPA requirements above, the department will require supplemental remediation on a case-by-case basis that may include any of the following: (1) take another Breadth course in the same category and obtain a grade of B+ or higher; (2) retake the same course at the next offering and obtain a grade of B+ or higher; or (3) retake the final exam of the same course with permission of the instructor and obtain a grade of B+ or higher. Failure to satisfy the required remediation will lead to termination from the PhD program.

-  If a student feels that they have already mastered the material in any of the Breadth categories (Theory, Systems, or Applications) — for example, from prior coursework or work experience —they may choose to satisfy the requirement in that category by taking an advanced course in the same category, and by receiving a grade of B+ or higher in the advanced course. Students should discuss their situation with the department as early as possible, and the department can provide potential options for advanced courses in that category. In all cases, students must obtain departmental approval before enrolling in or starting any advanced course that will be used to satisfy the Breadth Requirements.

-  Transfer credits may not be used for Breadth Requirements but may be used for Depth Requirements. (If transfer credits are used, the GPA for purposes of qualifying is calculated only from Breadth and Depth courses taken while enrolled in the PhD program.) Thus, incoming students with prior graduate-level coursework may be able to transfer up to 4 prior courses into the PhD program to satisfy the Depth Requirements. However, because transfer credits cannot be used for Breadth Requirements, all students must take a minimum of 4 courses as part of the PhD program, regardless of prior coursework.

Sample Plan of Study

Post-Bachelors PhD Student

Post-Masters PhD Student

Facilities

3675 Market Street

The College of Computing & Informatics is located at 3675 Market. Occupying three floors in the modern uCity Square building, CCI's home offers state-of-the-art technology in our classrooms, research labs, offices, meeting areas and collaboration spaces. 3675 Market offers Class A laboratory, office, coworking, and convening spaces. Located at the intersection of Market Street and 37th Street, 3675 Market acts as a physical nexus, bridging academic campuses and medical centers to the east and south, the commercial corridors along Market Street and Chestnut Street, and the residential communities to the north and west.

The uCity Square building offers:

• Speculative lab/office space
• World-class facilities operated by CIC
• Café/restaurant on-site
• Quorum, a two-story, 15K SF convening space and conference center
• Adjacent to future public square
• Access to Science Center’s nationally renowned business acceleration and technology commercialization programs

Drexel University Libraries

The Drexel University Libraries is a one-stop resource for all members of the Drexel community, providing access to millions of print and online books, journals, databases and other media, as well as hundreds of online course and research guides, workshops, and tutorials. Expert librarians offer a variety of consultation services virtually or in person, including help with course-related projects, strategies for finding and evaluating authoritative information, and approaches to utilizing, organizing, and presenting scholarship.

Students in the College of Computing & Informatics also have access to the W. W. Hagerty Library where they can take advantage of the Libraries’ various learning environments, including group study rooms, collaborative and silent study areas, and 24/7 study space in the Dragons’ Learning Den. The Libraries also offers a wellness room, printing and scanning services, and laptops, portable power chargers, and other equipment you can borrow for use in the Library.

CCI Commons

Located on the 10th floor of 3675 Market Street, the CCI Commons is an open lab and collaborative work environment for students. It features desktop computers, a wireless/laptop area, free black and white printing, and more collaborative space for its students. Students have access to 3675 Market's fully equipped conference room with 42” displays and videoconferencing capabilities. The CCI Commons provides technical support to students, faculty, and professional staff. In addition, the staff provides audio-visual support for all presentation classrooms within 3675 Market. Use of the CCI Commons is reserved for all students taking CCI courses.

The computers for general use are Microsoft Windows and Macintosh OSX machines with appropriate applications which include the Microsoft Office suite, various database management systems, modeling tools, and statistical analysis software. Library-related resources may be accessed at the CCI Commons and through the W.W. Hagerty Library. The College is a member of the "Azure Dev Tools for Teaching” platform that allows students free access to a wide array of Microsoft software titles and operating systems.

The CCI Commons, student labs, and classrooms have access to networked databases, print and file resources within the College, and the Internet via the University’s network. Email accounts, Internet and BannerWeb access are available through the Office of Information Resources and Technology.

Computer Support for Teaching

The CCI server room houses a multitude of servers to support faculty research, staff operations, and student learning. Services provided include a Linux compute cluster which is open to all faculty, staff, and students, multiple virtualization environments to meet different needs of faculty, staff, and students, and other single-purpose servers to support various operations throughout the college. The compute cluster provides a common environment for students to develop software, which makes testing easier for the TAs and faculty. Our virtualization environments allow college members the flexibility of a cloud environment with local support and direct cost recovery options. For those who need dedicated hardware, we also support dedicated research systems.

Classrooms are outfitted with laser projectors, 4K displays, class capture hardware, and the Wolfvision Cynap. The Cynap controls the AV distribution throughout the room and can display up to 4 streams simultaneously. These include the local PC, a laptop connected directly to the podium, or up to 4 streaming devices. Windows, macOS, iOS and Android devices can all connect wirelessly to the presentation system, allowing collaboration and freedom to roam the classroom for better interactivity. Wireless networking and outlets are also available for students throughout the classrooms. Laptops are available for checkout from the CCI Commons desk.

Additionally, CCI is hosting and supporting multiple Virtual Computing Lab environments for students to use that mimics the physical computer labs in CCI. This technology allows both online and face to face students to have the same experience when using computing facilities.

CCI Virtual Environments

CCI hosts a variety of virtual environments, which support all levels of research, academics, and administration at CCI. These include OpenStack, Proxmox VE, VMWare, and Xen architectures, backed by storage in CEPH. Multiple environments allow CCI IT to provide researchers with the level of control appropriate for the project at hand and make efficient use of project funding. External cloud vendors such as AWS and Google Cloud Platform are also used when appropriate.

CCI continues to invest in these virtual environments, and explores emerging environments, to continue to best support CCI research and teaching. CPU cores, storage, and memory are added at every opportunity to these flexible, scalable environments. The current capacity of the system includes:

• 1760 CPU Cores
• 6 TB of Memory
• Over 556 TB of HDD-backed storage
• 122 TB of high-performance SSD-backed storage
• 12 GPUs with room for expansion through funded research for high-performance computing needs

CCI Learning Center

The CCI Learning Center (CLC), located in 3675 Market Street's CCI Commons student computer lab, provides consulting and other learning resources for students taking courses offered by the Computer Science Department. The CLC is staffed by graduate and undergraduate computer science students from the College of Computing & Informatics.

The CLC and CCI Commons serve as a central hub for small group work, student meetings, and TA assistance. 

Research Laboratories

The College houses multiple research labs, led by CCI faculty, in 3675 Market Street including: the Metadata Research Center (MRC), Interactive Systems for Healthcare (IS4H) Research, Economics and Computation (EconCS), The TeX-Base Lab, SPiking And Recurrent SoftwarE (SPARSE) Coding, Human-System Evaluation and Analysis Lab (H-SEAL), Applied Symbolic Computation Laboratory (ASYM), Security and Privacy Analytics Lab (SePAL), Software Engineering and Analytics Research (SOAR), Software Engineering Research Group (SERG), Social Computing Research Group, Vision and Cognition Laboratory (VisCog). For more information on these laboratories, please visit the College’s research web page.