Guidelines for Physics Doctoral Candidates

This document describes the doctoral program in the Physics Department. It supplements the Graduate School Manual which outlines the general Institute requirements and is available on the web at http://web.mit.edu/gso/gem.

The primary goals of the graduate program in physics at MIT are to solidify and broaden your knowledge of physics and to teach you how to do research, how to identify important problems and how to communicate scientific information effectively. In short, how to become a professional physicist and a productive member of the scientific community.

We describe here the steps involved in accomplishing this. We apologize for the somewhat bureaucratic tone of the material, but experience has shown that it is helpful to have every aspect of the graduate program spelled out clearly in one document.

The physics graduate program is under the direction of the Graduate Committee, which is comprised of a subgroup of the Physics Education Committee with specific responsibilities in the graduate program. The current Graduate Committee members are:

Brian Canavan, Education Administrator
Professor Richard Yamamoto, Graduate Appointments Coordinator
Professor Thomas Greytak, Associate Department Head for Education
Professor Barton Zwiebach, General Examination and Requirements Coordinator
Professor Patrick Lee, Graduate Student Coordinator
Professor Roman Jackiw, Graduate Admissions Officer
Professor Peter Wolff, Career Counselor
Graduate Student Representatives

The staff in the Physics Education Office (PEO), Room 4-352, can direct you to committee members most appropriate to your specific questions or concerns. All of the forms referenced in this document are available in the PEO or on the Physics web page at http://web.mit.edu/physics/acad_programs/doctoral_guidelines.htm. Professor Thomas Greytak also serves as the advisor for student concerns about scientific misconduct issues including interactions with research supervisors, data integrity, and authorship. In addition, Prof. Barton Zwiebach and Mr. Brian Canavan serve as mediators in the Department and can be helpful in dealing with sensitive issues.

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