Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems

You can check individual faculty’s homepage as well as the research page on department’s website to find out our faculty’s research interests. You can also contact our faculty (preferably by email) to find whether there is a match.

We do not have hard thresholds but most successful applicants scored above 50% in Verbal if their interests are in Human-Centered-Computing and scored above 50% in Quantitative if their interests are in other areas.

At minimum a PhD student needs to complete 9 courses (2 methodology, 2 independent study, and 5 area courses). Please refer to the course requirement page for details.

Doctoral students with previously earned Master’s degrees may be excused from a maximum of six (6) courses, but must complete at least two courses at the 700/800 level at the Information Systems department. The student’s mentor must approve the course waivers.

A student needs to pass Comprehensive Exam within two years after admission to the program (one year extension can be given upon approval of program director). A student must be admitted to candidacy (i.e., passing the proposal defense) within five years after admission to the doctoral program. A student must pass dissertation defense within four years after candidacy.

It is an exam where students need to demonstrate the requisite knowledge of the discipline as well as the competencies that are necessary to continue doctoral studies by conducting original research. For details of the exam, please visit the comprehensive exam page.

The benefits include stipend, tuition remission, and coverage of health insurance. The graduate school website provides more details.

The department offers a limited number of teaching assistantships. In addition, faculty with external funding often offer research assistantships to incoming PhD students. We encourage you to contact faculty in your interested research area to find out such opportunities.

We do have part-time PhD students. However all course work are required to be done on campus. Conducting research requires frequent interaction with faculty mentor, which will be extremely difficult remotely.

Admission can be deferred for up to 1 year.  Please complete the Deferral Form for PhD students at https://gradschool.umbc.edu/students/forms/.

For the Graduate Program Coordinator, please use Shannon Carey, shannoncarey@umbc.edu for all fields needing a signature.