Curriculum: PhD Degree, MS Degree
Research, Not Teaching
Unlike most graduate programs, most of our PhD candidates are not required to teach undergraduate or lower level graduate courses. This means our students focus on what they came to school to do: research. However, there are numerous opportunities for our students to gain teaching experience. For instance, some graduate students assist in medical school laboratory courses.
Graduate student, Christopher Cox, studies vascular development in quail embryos.
Special Events
Charles R. Ross PhD Research Poster Session
This annual two-day event allows the scientific community at Upstate to share its research activities with each other and the public.
Biomedical Sciences Research Retreat
This day-long retreat in the Finger Lakes region celebrates research accomplishments at Upstate with faculty and student presentations and poster sessions.
Neurofest
This two-day event sponsored by the Neuroscience program includes a poster session and symposium featuring neuroscience research from throughout central New York.
See: NEUROFEST
PhD Degree
The PhD program—including research, didactic course work and successful defense of a thesis—is intended to be completed in approximately five years.
First Year
All first-year students participate in three lab rotations of their choosing. Lab rotations give students exposure to diverse research environments and help them select a research mentor with whom to do their dissertation work.
To help students select their rotation labs, the college offers the Graduate Student Research Opportunities course during the first three weeks. In this course, representatives from each of the six biomedical sciences programs describe the research interests of their faculty members. These presentations, along with the guidance of a faculty adviser, help students select their rotation labs.
All first-year students also participate in a core curriculum designed to provide a broad-based education in the basic biomedical sciences and to develop a sense of community and collegiality. The focal point of the core curriculum is Foundations of Biomedical Sciences, taken during the fall semester. Taught by faculty from throughout the college, this course covers fundamental and advanced topics in biochemistry, cell biology, cell physiology and neurobiology, and biomedical instrumentation and techniques.
Beginning in January, students begin to take electives of particular interest to them. At the same time, they participate in Journal Club, in which students practice analyzing papers and giving oral presentations.
By the end of the spring semester, students begin focusing primarily on research. They have until the end of the first year to select a mentor at which time they become affiliated with their mentor's degree granting program.
A list of our faculty and their specific research interests can be found within the home pages for each department/ program.
See: PROGRAMS
Second Year
By the start of the second year, most PhD students have begun work on the research project that will lead to their dissertation. During this year, students take Responsible Conduct of Scientific Research, which examines the moral and philosophical issues confronting scientists, and continue to take electives based on their research interests as well as courses required by their program. In Grant Writing, a popular elective, students learn to write grant applications under the supervision of a professor. Then, the entire class acts as a peer-review panel, as funding agencies do, in critiquing all the grant proposals.
Students must pass a qualifying exam to become candidates for the doctoral degree. This exam must be scheduled by the end of the second year.
Later Years
Within six months of passing the qualifying exam, students must put together a thesis advisory committee, comprised of three to six faculty members from different departments. The committee meets every six months to review the student's progress, make suggestions and provide direction.
After completing their research projects, students are required to write a thesis and defend it before a dissertation defense committee.
Master's DegreeFour departments in the College of Graduate Studies offer master's degrees:
The master's degree program typically takes two to three years to complete. Master's students participate in selected parts of the core curriculum along with PhD students. However, unlike PhD students who enter the College of Graduate Studies through the Biomedical Sciences Program and affiliate with a degree-granting program at the end of their first year, master's students join a degree-granting program from the start. Like PhD students, master's students are required to write and defend a thesis dissertation, but they do not take a qualifying exam. Additional requirements for master's students vary depending on the department.
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