PhD in Computer Science

The official policies for this program may be found in the CS Graduate Student Handbook Supplement. If there is any conflict between this webpage and the official policies, then the official policies have precedence.

Computer Science faculty actively seek interdisciplinary collaborations within Tufts School of Engineering and across the university. Funded research includes projects with civil, chemical, electrical, and biomedical engineering departments, Tufts School of Medicine,  Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Tufts Medical Center, and the departments of biology, chemistry, astrophysics, classics, child development, and psychology in Tufts School of Arts and Sciences.

Doctoral candidates are expected to plan a program of research under the direction of their dissertation supervisor and with the guidance of a faculty committee. Upon completion of this research, the candidate must prepare and publicly defend their dissertation.

Doctoral degrees require the fulfillment of the specific department requirements including the number of courses with grades of S (satisfactory) or at least a B-, as well as successful completion of the qualifying examination and doctoral dissertation.

• Course requirement: Students should take 20 courses, comprising 60 credits, for the PhD degree. At least two courses must be regular 100-200 level courses.
• Community/residence requirement: Fulfilled by attending at least 50% of the weekly departmental seminars in each of four semesters. This is the minimal requirement.
• Teaching requirement: Every doctoral student is expected to assist in the teaching of a course for at least one semester.
• Qualifying requirements: A student qualifies to begin research on their selected topic by completing the following steps:
  • Obtaining core competence
  • Completing a preliminary research project
  • Giving an oral presentation on the project
  • Passing a written qualifying exam
  • Passing an oral qualifying exam
• Prospectus requirement: After successfully completing the qualifying examination, the student should submit a thesis prospectus.
• Dissertation requirement: The student will perform research under the direction of the advisor, write a dissertation about that work, have the dissertation read by a committee, and defend the work in an oral presentation.
• Defense requirement: The defense includes a 45-minute talk open to the public where the student presents their research.

PhD Requirements

A typical student should be able to satisfy the first three requirements while obtaining the MS degree. In most cases, the candidate will have satisfied course requirements through course work in their BS or MS degree, before beginning the PhD program In any case, the student should meet with the members of the examination committee well before the examinations to make sure that preparation for these requirements has been adequate.

• The PhD Dissertation and Defense: This requirement can be reviewed in the Graduate Handbook.
• The Community/Residence Requirement: This requirement is fulfilled by attending at least 50% of the weekly departmental seminars in each of four semesters.
  • This is the minimal requirement – it is hoped that most students will attend a larger percentage of seminars for a longer period of time.
  • This requirement may be satisfied at any semester and concurrently with the other requirements.
• The Teaching Requirement: Every doctoral student is expected to assist in the teaching of a course for at least one semester.
  • This requirement may be satisfied at any semester and concurrently with the other requirements.
• The Qualifying Requirement: A student qualifies to begin research on their selected topic by completing the following steps (usually in the given order):
  • Obtaining core competence
  • Completing a preliminary research project
  • Giving an oral presentation on this project
  • Passing a written qualifying exam
  • Passing an oral qualifying exam
• Core competence: Each PhD candidate is expected to have competence at the level of an excellent undergraduate in the following core areas:
  • Computer Architecture and Assembly Language
  • Programming Languages (specifically, functional programming and object-oriented programming with inheritance)
  • Data Structures and Algorithms
  • Theory of Computation

For detailed information on PhD requirements, consult the Tufts Graduate Student Handbook and the Computer Science supplement to the handbook.