Civil Engineering PhD

Major: Civil Engineering
Degree Awarded: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Calendar Type: Quarter
Minimum Required Credits: 90.0 
Co-op Option: None
Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code: 14.0801
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code: 17-2015

About the Program

Objectives

The graduate program in civil engineering offers students the opportunity to develop a more fundamental and complete understanding of the principles that govern their field as well as current design methodology. Students are encouraged to be innovative and imaginative in their quest for recognizing, stating, analyzing, and solving engineering problems.

Civil Engineering is inherently an interdisciplinary enterprise that is centered on the design, construction, and operation of the build environment. Civil Engineering PhD graduates may include students with expertise in one or more of the following sub-disciplines (usually housed in civil/environmental engineering and elsewhere in traditional disciplinary constructs or newly developing fields or focus of expertise):

• Structural engineering
• Geotechnical/geosynthetics engineering
• Water resources engineering, and
• Sustainable engineering

Graduates are engineers and researchers trained in integrated building design and operation practices who can work on interdisciplinary teams that are able to develop creative solutions combined with technological advances to produce functional, efficient, attractive, and sustainable building infrastructure.

Additional Information

For more information, visit the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering webpage.

Admission Requirements

Applicants to the PhD in Civil Engineering must have a minimum of a Bachelor of Science degree. The application package will include: 

• undergraduate and graduate transcripts
• three letters of recommendation from faculty or professionals who can evaluate the applicant's promise as a graduate student
• GRE scores (optional)
• a written statement of career and educational goals.

Competitive applicants will possess an undergraduate GPA of 3.30 or higher and GRE scores above the 60th percentile.

For additional information on how to apply, visit Drexel's Admissions page for Civil Engineering.

Degree Requirements

Requirements

The following general requirements must be satisfied to complete the PhD in Civil Engineering:

• Establishment of plan of study with PhD advisor
• Completion of 90.0 quarter credit hours (or 45 credit hours post-Masters), including taking certain qualifying courses
• Passing of PhD candidacy exam
• Approval of PhD dissertation proposal
• Defense of PhD dissertation

Students entering the PhD program with an approved Master of Science (MS) degree must take 45 credit hours of coursework and research to be approved by their PhD advisor. Students entering the PhD program without an approved MS degree can either complete the 45-credit hour Master of Science in Civil Engineering (MSCE) degree followed by an additional 45 credit hours post MSCI, or they can choose to not obtain the MSCE and complete only the required "core" courses for the PhD degree with the completion of a total of 90 required credit hours. Students with previous graduate coursework may transfer no more than 15 quarter credits (equivalent to 12 semester credit) from approved institutions if deemed equivalent to courses offered within the department.

All PhD students are required to meet all milestones of the program. The total credit amount, candidacy exam, and dissertation are university requirements. Additional requirements are determined by the department offering the degree.

Qualifying Courses

To satisfy the qualifying requirements, students must earn a grade of B+ or better in the six or seven required "core" courses (depending on the program of study) taken at Drexel and must earn an overall GPA of 3.5 or better in these courses.

Undergraduate courses, independent studies, research credits, and courses from other departments cannot be counted toward the qualifying requirements. Students progress toward these requirements will be assessed by the PhD advisor following the student's first year in the PhD program. For more information, visit the Civil Engineering's PhD Program Requirements page.

Candidacy Exam

After approximately one year of study beyond the MS degree or completion of the required "core" courses, if their GPA is greater than or equal to 3.5, PhD students can and must take a candidacy examination consisting of written and oral parts. Successful completion of the candidacy exam enables a student to progress from the designation of PhD student to PhD candidate. The candidacy exam represents the first exam in a series of three that comprise the PhD curriculum.

The Civil Engineering candidacy examination serves to define the student's research domain and to evaluate the student's knowledge and understanding of various fundamental and foundational results in that domain. The student is expected to be able to read, understand, analyze, and explain advanced technical results in a specialized area of Civil Engineering at an adequate level of detail. The candidacy examination will evaluate those abilities by asking a student to summarize literature and/or undertake a small research project. The student will prepare a written summary of review and/or project results, present the outcome orally, and answer questions about the report or presentation. The candidacy examination committee will evaluate the written report, the oral presentation, and the student's answers. The candidacy committee membership must follow the requirements of the Graduate College and must be approved by the Graduate College.

Students with a GPA < 3.5 do not meet eligibility requirements to sit for the candidacy exam. In this case, a student may petition a Graduate Advisor to take a Preliminary Written Exam (PWE). A committee will be formed consisting of three members selected from the pool of faculty in the field of research interest of the student and the pool of faculty who taught the courses taken by the student during the preceding terms. An exam will be developed consisting of a series of questions/problems prepared by the three written exam committee members. The written exam, while fixed in duration, may be composed of several different problem-solving assignments. Additionally, the exam may be closed book or open book or a combination thereof. The student will consult with the advisor to become acquainted with the specific rules of the exam. The exam will be graded by the PWE Committee to determine if the student may sit for the candidacy exam.

Dissertation Proposal

After successfully completing the candidacy examination, the PhD candidate must prepare a dissertation proposal that outlines, in detail, the specific problems that will be solved during the research that is conducted to complete the PhD dissertation. The quality of the dissertation proposal should be at the level of a peer-reviewed proposal to a federal funding agency, or a publishable scientific paper. The candidate is responsible for sending the dissertation proposal to the PhD committee no less than two weeks before the scheduled oral presentation. The PhD committee membership need not be the same as the candidacy exam committee, but it follows the same requirements and must be approved by the Graduate College. The oral presentation involves a presentation by the candidate followed by a period during which the committee will ask questions. The committee will then determine if the dissertation proposal has been accepted. The dissertation proposal can be repeated at most once if the proposal was not accepted.

A dissertation proposal must be approved within two years of becoming a PhD candidate. After approval of the dissertation proposal, the committee may meet to review the progress of the research.

Dissertation Defense

After successfully completing the dissertation proposal, the PhD candidate must conduct the necessary research and publish the results in a PhD dissertation. The dissertation must be submitted to the PhD committee no less than two weeks prior to the scheduled oral defense. The oral presentation by the candidate is open to the public, followed by an unspecified period during which the committee will ask questions. The question-and-answer period is not open to the public. The committee will then determine if the candidate has passed or failed the examination. If not passed, the candidate will be granted one more chance to pass the final defense.

The PhD degree is awarded for original research on a significant Civil Engineering problem. Graduate students will work closely with individual faculty members to pursue the PhD degree. PhD dissertation research is usually supported by a research grant from a government agency or an industrial contract. Many doctoral students take three to five years of full-time graduate study to complete their degrees.

Program Requirements 

Sample Plan of Study

Upon entering the PhD program, each student will be assigned an academic advisor, and with the help of the advisor will develop and file a plan of study (which can be brought up to date when necessary). The plan of study should be filed with the graduate advisor and uploaded to the E-Forms system no later than the end of the first term. The Eforms system will be used to track program progression and milestones. Sample Plans of Study are presented below:

Post Bachelor of Science Degree - Geotechnical/Geosynthetics Engineering

Post Bachelor of Science Degree - Structural Engineering

Post Bachelor of Science Degree - Water Resources Engineering

Post Master of Science Degree

Facilities

Construction Materials Laboratory
This laboratory contains facilities for the study of concrete, asphalt, mortar, soil-cement, and timber materials, and moist cure facilities.

Geosynthetics Laboratory
This laboratory contains a complete suite of physical, mechanical, hydraulic, endurance, and environmental test devices for assessing behavior of geotextiles, geogrids, geonets, geomembranes, and geocomposites.

HVAC and Refrigeration Laboratory
This laboratory contains complete models of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, and pumping system models.

Hydromechanics Laboratory
This laboratory contains a wave channel tilting flume, pipe friction equipment, bench demonstration equipment, and a beach erosion model.

Soil Mechanics and Geoenvironmental Laboratory
This laboratory contains triaxial and direct shear equipment, controlled environmental chambers, consolidation tests, flexwall permeameters, and a test bed.

Structural Testing Laboratory
This laboratory contains universal testing machines with 150,000- and 300,000-pound capacity and test beds with MTS dynamic load equipment.

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty

Emeritus Faculty