Program Overview

Program Overview

The Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Engineering requires a minimum of 75 semester credit hours beyond the baccalaureate degree.

Program Faculty

The program faculty includes:

• Professors:
  • Poras T. Balsara
  • Farokh B. Bastani
  • Dinesh Bhatia
  • Ovidiu Daescu
  • Ding-Zhu Du
  • Andrea Fumagalli
  • Gopal Gupta
  • John H. L. Hansen
  • Nasser Kehtarnavaz
  • Latifur Khan
  • Kamran Kiasaleh
  • Giorgos (Yiorgos) Makris
  • Hlaing Minn
  • Neeraj Mittal
  • Mehrdad Nourani
  • Issa M. S. Panahi
  • Balakrishnan Prabhakaran
  • Carl Sechen
  • Lakshman Tamil
  • Weili Wu
  • I-Ling Yen
  • Rym Zalila-Wenkstern
  • Dian Zhou
• Associate Professors:
  • Benjamin Carrion Schafer
  • Jorge A. Cobb
  • Joseph Friedman
  • Cong Liu
• Assistant Professors:
  • Kanad Basu
  • Chung Hwan Kim
  • Jin Kim
  • Wei Yang
• Professor Emeritus:
  • Ivor P. Page
  • William J. Pervin
• Professors of Instruction:
  • Richard Goodrum
  • Tooraj Nikoubin
  • Greg Ozbirn
  • William (Bill) Swartz
  • Marco Tacca
• Associate Professors of Instruction:
  • Md Ali
  • Diana Cogan
  • Chris I. Davis

Admission Requirements

The admission requirements for the program are as follows:

• A master's degree in Computer Engineering or a closely associated discipline such as Electrical Engineering or Computer Science from an institution of higher education in the U.S. or from an acceptable foreign university.
• Consideration will be given to highly qualified students wishing to pursue the doctorate without satisfying all of the requirements for a master's degree.
• GPA (grade point average) in graduate level coursework of 3.5 or higher on a 4.0 point scale.
• GRE revised scores of 154, 156, and 4 for the verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing components, respectively, are advisable based on our experience with student success in the program.
• Applicants must submit three letters of recommendation on official school or business letterhead or the UT Dallas Letter of Recommendation Form from individuals who are familiar with the student's record and able to judge the candidate's probability of success in pursuing doctoral study in Computer Engineering.
• Applicants must also submit a narrative describing their motivation for doctoral study and how it relates to their professional goals.

Degree Requirements

The degree requirements for the program are as follows:

• A minimum of 75 semester credit hours beyond the baccalaureate degree.
• At least 30 semester credit hours of graduate level courses beyond the baccalaureate level in the major concentration.
• The core requirements for the PhD degree in Computer Engineering are the same as the ones for the MS in Computer Engineering.
• All PhD students must demonstrate competence in the master's level core courses in their research area.
• A qualifying examination (QE), as approved by the CE graduate committee, demonstrating competence in the PhD candidate's research area.
• A comprehensive exam consists of: a written dissertation proposal, a public seminar, and a private oral examination conducted by the PhD candidate's supervising committee.
• Completion of a major research project culminating in a dissertation demonstrating an original contribution to scientific knowledge and engineering practice.
• The dissertation will be defended publicly.

Areas of Research

The program offers research opportunities in the following areas:

• Data Analytics
• Biomedical Applications
• Circuits and Systems
• Cloud Computing
• Communications
• Computer Architecture
• Control Systems
• Cyber & Hardware Security
• Digital Forensics
• Digital Systems
• Distributed Algorithms and Systems
• Embedded Systems
• Energy Systems
• Healthcare Technology
• Machine Learning
• Mobile Computing
• Reconfigurable Computing
• Robotics
• Signal/Image Processing
• System Reliability and Safety Assurance
• Telecommunications and Networks
• Vehicular Technology
• Wireless Networks

Interdisciplinary Opportunities

The program encourages students to interact with researchers in the strong basic sciences and mathematics, and cross-disciplinary collaborations have been established with faculty across various departments and schools.