Degree Requirements
- Credit Hours: Graduate students in the Ph.D. program must successfully complete a minimum of 71 credit hours. Each student may apply a maximum of 31 credit hours of research toward the 71-hour requirement; the remaining 40 credit hours must be earned in graduate-level courses in Forensic Science.
- Grade Point Average: Students must earn a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 and a minimum GPA of 3.0 in courses applied to the degree.
- Program of Study: The program also includes an oral qualifying examination, a dissertation proposal presentation, and an oral defense of the dissertation.
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Oral Qualifying Examination: Doctoral students must pass a comprehensive oral examination in the field of criminalistics to demonstrate their competency in the discipline and successfully defend the topic of their dissertation research.
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Dissertation: Students are required to complete a dissertation. Additional information, expectations, requirements, and timeline information is found in the Department's Graduate Student Handbook.
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Benchmarks: For details, go to the Forensics Degree Progress tab.
Curriculum Requirements
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| CORE COURSES | 24 | |
| Foundations of Criminalistics | ||
| Forensic Laboratory Management | ||
| Forensic Informatics | ||
| Trace Evidence Examination | ||
| Forensic Casework Practicum | ||
| Advanced Forensic Biology | ||
| Research Design in Forensic Science | ||
| Statistical Methods 2 * | ||
| Forensic Chemistry Requirement | 4 | |
| Select one of the following lecture and lab pairs: | ||
| Arson and Explosives Analysis and Arson and Explosives Analysis Laboratory | ||
| Analysis of Seized Drugs and Analysis of Seized Drugs Laboratory | ||
| Analytical Forensic Toxicology and Analytical Forensic Toxicology Laboratory | ||
| ELECTIVES | 6 | |
Any FIS course at the 400 or above * | ||
Any BIOL, CHEM, or PHAR course at the 400 level or above * | ||
| FORENSIC SEMINAR | 6 | |
| Graduate Seminar ** | ||
| RESEARCH | 31 | |
| Research | ||
| Total Hours | 71 | |
- *
Or equivalent graduate course approved by Graduate Studies Committee. Excludes Graduate Seminar (796) and Research (797).
- **
Each attempt at FIS 796 is worth one credit hour; students must successfully complete one credit per semester over six semesters.
Major Learning Outcomes
Forensic Science
As a result of completing the PhD in Forensic Science, students will be able to:
- Assess the value of evidence in different circumstances, propose best practices for its examination and demonstrate mastery in performing a variety of different examinations of evidence
- Identify the limitations in the knowledge and capabilities of forensic science, formulate creative solutions and design and conduct scientifically sound experiments to overcome the identified limitations.
- Execute persuasive communications, in written and oral formats, of his/her test results and research discoveries