Environmental Engineering PhD

Major: Environmental 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: 14.1401
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code: 17-2081

About the Program

Environmental Engineering is concerned with protecting human, animal, and plant populations from the effects of adverse environmental factors, including toxic chemicals and wastes, pathogenic bacteria, and global warming. Environmental Engineering PhD graduates may include students with expertise in one or more of the following sub-disciplines:

• air pollution,
• hazardous and solid waste,
• subsurface contaminant hydrology,
• water resources,
• water and wastewater, and
• sustainability treatment

Environmental engineers also try to minimize the effect of human activities on the physical and living environment so that we can all live more healthy and sustainable lives. This field builds on other branches of engineering, especially civil, chemical, and mechanical engineering. It also builds on information from many of the sciences, such as chemistry, physics, hydrology, geology, atmospheric science, and several specializations of biology (ecology, microbiology) and public health. Students who elect to study environmental engineering will become familiar with many of these areas because maintaining and improving the environment requires that problems be evaluated and solutions found using a multidisciplinary approach.

Additional Information

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

Admission Requirements

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

• undergraduate and graduate transcripts
• two 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.

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

Degree Requirements

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

• Establishment of plan of study with PhD advisor
• Completion of 90.0 quarter credit hours (or 45 credit hours post-MS), 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 Environmental Engineering (MSENE) degree followed by an additional 45 credit hours post MSENE, or they can choose not to obtain the MSENE and complete only the required “core” courses for the PhD degree within 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 credits) 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 five required “core” courses 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. Student 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 Environmental 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 ≥ 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 Environmental 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 Environmental 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 Office of Graduate Studies and must be approved by the Office of Graduate Studies.

Students with a GPA < 3.5 do not meet eligibility requirements to sit for the candidacy exam. In this case, a student may petition the 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 Office of Graduate Studies. 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 Environmental Engineering problem. Graduate students will work closely with individual faculty members to purse 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 (you must be connected to the Drexel VPN for access to Eforms). The Eforms system will be used to track program progression and milestones. Sample Plans of Study are presented below:

Post Bachelor of Science Degree

Post Master of Science Degree

Facilities

The Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering is well equipped with state-of-the-art facilities:

• Analytical instrumentation for measuring biological and chemical contaminants in air, water and land
• Field sampling equipment for water and air measurements
• Molecular biology capability
• Computational facilities including access to multi-processor clusters, and advanced simulation and data analysis software

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty

Emeritus Faculty