PHD, Industrial Engineering

The Ph.D. degree is a research-oriented degree for students interested in a career in the academic community, in a consulting field, or in an industrial or service organization interested in advanced training. The research interests of the industrial and systems engineering faculty are grouped in four broad areas: advanced manufacturing (MFG), health and human systems engineering (HHSE), operations research (OR), and data science (DS).

Students in both the 64-hour Ph.D. program (Master's to Ph.D.) and 96-hour Ph.D. program (B.S. to Ph.D.) are required to take no fewer than 11 regular courses, or 33 credit hours, including three credit hours of ISEN 681. This means that for students in the 64-hour degree program, they can use up to 31 hours of ISEN 691, and for students in the 96-hour degree program, they can use up to 63 hours of ISEN 691, towards their degree requirement.

At least three (3) depth courses on a Ph.D. degree plan should be from a set of advanced graduate courses. A Ph.D. student needs to earn a letter grade of B or better on these courses. Each of the four research areas shall have a list of graduate courses that the area faculty deems as the advanced course set, furthering a student's knowledge into sufficient depth of that area. Area faculty should have their advanced course set on file with the ISEN director of graduate programs, so that the ISEN Graduate Program Office can determine that this requirement is satisfied before a Ph.D. degree plan is approved by the department. The advanced course set can be amended by its creating area faculty at any time.

For more detailed information regarding the Ph.D. program, please refer to the ISEN Graduate Handbook.