Requirements for PhD graduation from Yale Elab
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This document summarizes the requirements for obtaining a PhD degree from our group. Students should familiarize with the content and are welcome to ask questions and discuss the requirements.

Incoming students will take approximately one year to complete class requirements and begin laboratory and research work. On their first and second year, they will be leading multiple startup projects (pre-project, usually equivalent to a MS thesis). They will be required to publish designs and results based on these projects. Student will be evaluated in this phase and encouraged or discouraged to proceed with the degree requirements. On their fourth and fifth year students will be required to show autonomous ability to conduct research. Students are required at all times to work in the laboratory sitting next to other students and lab member for no less than 8 hours per day on a regular basis.

The requirement for graduation and successful thesis submission are:

- show analytical modeling of the pre-project results and ability to select the appropriate technologies to improve the results obtained in the pre-project.

- show that their modeling can satisfy tighter requirements and deliver significant improvement over the pre-project results

- fabricate, test and instrument an advanced version of the pre-project and confirm analysis. Repeat this step multiple times until significant improvements are reached and documented in publications.

- demonstrate original work where the main conceptual advances are the fruit of his own work only

- the student will be required to develop a fully functional demonstration system that can confirm his modeling prediction, provide results that are at or above the project specifications, and show a creative component

- the student will have to identify a career path and show ability to fulfill the job requirements

- show ability to help colleagues in different projects and possess knowledge of at least all project in the group and not only his own project

- the student is able to write, present and teach material form his research and its foundations

Generally students take 5-6 years under my supervision to complete these requirements. Failure to comply with these requirements and timelines will compromise student funding at any point of their career.