The PhD Degree

• Overview
• Steps to the PhD
• Course Requirements
  • Core Courses
  • Lab Requirement
  • Core Course and Lab Waivers
  • Breadth Requirement
  • Sample Schedule
• Teaching and Graduate Seminars
• The Comprehensive Exam
• The Oral Exam
• The Doctoral Defense
• Good Standing
• Tuition Waivers
• Graduate Funding
• Concentrations
  • Astronomy Concentration
  • Physical Biology Concentration

Overview

Students in the Ph.D. program gain a solid background in the breadth of physics and astronomy, and demonstrate their ability to carry out research and overcome new challenges in a specific area of interest. These students often go on to traditional research positions at universities and national labs as well as to industrial labs. Other careers pursued by PhD graduates might include medical physics, analysis in technological and financial settings, and data science.

The learning goals for the PhD degree are as follows:

• Should have mastered core physics and should be familiar with areas of physics outside their research specialty.
• Should be able to think independently and have acquired critical reasoning skills.
• Should be an expert in their research specialty and have demonstrated the ability to conduct original research.
• Should be able to communicate research results to an audience of physicists.

Beyond the standard Ph.D. in Physics, our program offers two concentrations for students with more specific interests: a Ph.D. Degree in Physics with Concentration in Astronomy and a Ph.D. Degree in Physics with Concentration in Physical Biology. Full requirements for the standard program and concentrations, along with the funding package and tuition waiver typical of a PhD, are given in the sections below.

Steps to the PhD

Becoming a Ph.D. in Physics happens in two phases: first advancing to candidacy by completing coursework and passing your exams, then conducting original doctoral research and defending it. The tables below lay out both phases in order; every milestone in them is covered in full detail in its own section further down this page.

Phase I: Advancing to Candidacy

Advancing to candidacy means finding an advisor, completing the core and required coursework, and passing both the Comprehensive Exam and the Oral Exam – these don’t have to happen in a fixed order, and the Oral Exam is often completed while coursework or the Comprehensive Exam are still in progress. Each is covered in its own section below.

Phase II: Doctoral Research

Once you’ve advanced to candidacy, the focus shifts to research: working with your advisor, meeting annually with your thesis committee, and ultimately writing and defending your dissertation.

Most students follow this path exactly as described above. Two concentrations – an Astronomy Concentration and a Physical Biology Concentration – modify some of these requirements for students with more specific interests; see the bottom of this page for details.

Course Requirements

Only courses with a grade B or better are counted towards the Ph.D. degree.

Core Courses

One of the requirements for advancement to candidacy is demonstration of command of four core areas of physics: Classical Mechanics (PHY 501), Electricity and Magnetism (PHY 505), Quantum Mechanics (PHY 511/512) and Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics (PHY 540). Most students should take the core courses during their first year.

Lab Requirement

PHY 515 or PHY 517 – both laboratory courses provide an introduction to the special problems of experimental physics and astronomy. Students perform a number of classical and instructive experiments to learn why and how we acquire the knowledge upon which physics is based.

Core Course and Lab Waivers

Waivers may be granted for required courses – core courses, breadth requirements, teaching experience, PHY 515, etc. – on the basis of work done at other universities. Requests must be made during the first semester of study at Stony Brook, directed to the Graduate Program Director; a transcript alone is not sufficient, so the student should also bring supporting documentation such as a detailed course syllabus, course WEB pages, and homework assignments.

For a core course specifically, a waiver can be granted two ways: by taking advanced graduate courses covering equivalent material elsewhere, subject to approval by an Advising Committee appointed by the Graduate Program Director; or by a sufficiently good performance on the corresponding subject of the placement examination, given at the Placement level at the beginning of the Fall semester (2nd-year students and beyond need permission from the Graduate Program Director to take the placement exam).

In the case of the Graduate Laboratory course (PHY 515 or PHY 517) all materials associated with the course taken elsewhere should be presented: syllabus, the faculty supplied instructions or “write-ups” of the experiments done by the student, the laboratory logbook in which the student recorded the day-to-day results of each experiment, and the final written report for each experiment, together with the grades for each of those. Students seeking a waiver in PHY 515 or PHY 517 should submit all materials to faculty teaching the course soon after arrival to Stony Brook. Instead of fully waiving the course requirement, waivers are sometimes granted for individual experiments.

Breadth Requirement

All Ph.D. students must take at least three advanced courses in three different areas of physics and astronomy or a related area chosen from a list of courses and areas approved for this purpose (see table below) or courses approved by the graduate program director. No more than one course from the PHY 680 or PHY 690 series or outside the Department of Physics and Astronomy can be used to fulfill this requirement.

Areas and Courses eligible for the Breadth requirement

Students in the Astronomy track have the option to take three of the astronomy courses (PHY 521-524, 620) rather than the above.

Students completing the Astronomy Concentration or the Physical Biology Concentration satisfy this requirement differently – see those sections at the bottom of this page.

Sample Schedules

How quickly you approach the core courses should depend on your level of preparation. Please do not underestimate these courses and overestimate your own preparation! Remember that you also need to do breadth, grad lab, grad seminars. Here are some example plans you could follow, slowest at the top, fastest at the bottom.

Teaching and Graduate Seminars

Teaching

PHY 600 Teaching (two semesters) – because teaching and research are inextricably intertwined in a scientist’s career, all Ph.D. students are required to teach (be a TA) for two semesters. Many do this for a second year. The first introduction to teaching begins during the orientation week: entering students participate in a TA training, required for all new TA’s. Usually graduate students will conduct laboratory sections associated with undergraduate courses. Senior faculty members closely supervise this effort. Students normally do their teaching concurrently with their own first year courses, and earn 0-3 academic credits per semester in PHY 600.

Graduate Seminars

Two out of three of PHY 598, PHY 599, and PHY 664 are required of all Ph.D., M.S.I., and M.A. students. Almost everybody should take them during their first two semesters at Stony Brook, as they provide a good way to get acquainted with the department. The courses cover different areas of physics and can be taken in any order.

In these seminars, students gain experience presenting research topics to an audience of their peers. This requires different skills than the core courses: the level of knowledge between speaker and listeners is nearly on a par, and the motivation for the activity is different too. This prepares graduate students for presenting research at seminars and scientific meetings, as well as for their own thesis defense.

PHY 664 Astro Journal Club was added as an alternative to one of 598 and 599 in Fall 2025. PHY 664 is expected to satisfy the degree requirement for two semesters of a seminar course. Although formally this is still pending approval from the Graduate School, we recommend that students interested in Astronomy take PHY 664 in lieu of one of 598 and 599, starting in the Fall 2025 semester.

The Comprehensive Exam

The comprehensive exam, which also plays the role of a Placement Exam, is offered over four days, and covers classical mechanics (CM), relativity, electricity, magnetism and optics (EM), quantum mechanics (QM) and statistical mechanics and thermodynamics (SM). The exam takes place in August and in January during the week before the start of classes.

All PhD students are required to pass the Comprehensive exam before the start of their third year as a PhD student. The minimum requirement for passing this exam is passing three subjects at the PhD level and one subject at the Master level. Admission to the fifth semester of graduate study is contingent upon passing the comprehensive exam or by explicit approval of the Graduate Program Director. We encourage all first-year students to take the Comprehensive exam for practice. There is no expectation by the Department that such students will pass, although some do. There is absolutely no disgrace in an unsuccessful attempt.

Most students with an American bachelor’s degree and no additional advanced studies have passed the Comprehensive by the beginning of the fourth semester; many pass earlier. Students with more advanced background often pass in the first year. In some cases, students pass the comprehensive exam at the beginning of the fifth semester, but this is not encouraged. In such cases, the Oral exam should be completed beforehand so that a student’s status in the department is clear immediately after the written exam results are available.

The comprehensive exam can be passed at three different levels. The highest level is at the placement level, then all three problems in a given subject area have to be passed at a high level set by the faculty. Students passing at this level are exempt from the corresponding core course requirement. The second pass level is the PhD level – at this level students have to pass only two of the three problems at a lower level than the placement level. The lowest pass level, also for two out of the three problems for each subject, is as the Master level. The passing level is set by the faculty and is lower than the PhD level. The comprehensive exam is passed in each subject separately. The level is roughly that of the midterm and final examinations in the core courses. With regard to academic integrity, religious observances, disabilities, etc., this exam follows the university wide guidelines for courses and exams. One hand written page of notes (both sides) is allowed for each subject.

The Comprehensive Exam is prepared by the Graduate Examinations Committee. The Department’s faculty meets to discuss the results of the Comprehensive exam about one week after each exam. After that meeting, the answer books are available in the Department office for inspection by the students for grading errors, or for removal by the appropriate student. No grade changes are allowed to an exam book after it has left the office. It is a student’s responsibility to ask a professor to regrade a particular question, and this must be done in the office. A large number of small grade changes is not an acceptable way to make a significant change in a total score. Unclaimed books may be discarded after four weeks.

Waivers: A transfer student who has been admitted into the Ph.D. program in Physics at Stony Brook and who has passed a written comprehensive examination as a matriculated student in the doctoral program of the physics or astronomy department at another university may request a waiver of the written comprehensive examination. To request such a waiver a student should:

• First, discuss the situation with the Graduate Program Director.
• Submit to the Graduate Examination Committee a copy (in English or in the original language with an English translation) of the examination which the student passed.
• Supply a signed statement by the Chair or Graduate Program Director of the student’s previous university certifying the maximum possible grade on the examination, the minimum grade for a pass at the Ph.D. level, and the grade obtained by the student.

The Graduate Examinations Committee will consider both the level of the test and the quality of the student’s performance in deciding whether to recommend to the faculty that the student be exempted from taking the written comprehensive exam at Stony Brook.

The Oral Exam

The oral exam consists of a presentation of an approved research topic in physics or astronomy to a committee of at least three faculty members, prepared under the guidance of one of them. The committee members must be approved in advance by the Graduate Program Director. The committee should contain at least one experimentalist and one theorist, and at least one member whose research specialty is different from the student’s field of research. At least half of the committee, and the chair, must be full-time faculty, and the chair cannot be the student’s future advisor.

The faculty advisor for the oral exam will generally become the student’s thesis advisor. This exam is a demonstration that the student is capable of beginning Ph.D.-level research; it is not necessary to show a completed research project.

Students are encouraged to complete the Oral Exam by the end of their fifth semester at Stony Brook. The formal deadline is the end of the third year (sixth semester). Students may take the Oral Exam while still completing their coursework and the Comprehensive Exam – there’s no requirement to finish those first.

In some cases a student may pass the Oral Exam on time, but a thesis advisor will not be identified before the beginning of the fifth semester. In this case, students will be provisionally readmitted for the fifth semester (but not for later semesters, except if an advisor is identified). The Department cannot guarantee financial support to students readmitted this way.

For how to assemble your committee, choose a topic, and submit the required forms, see The Oral Exam in Resources.

The Doctoral Defense

This is the last exam taken by a Ph.D. student at Stony Brook: an oral defense of the thesis before the Thesis Defense Committee. All defense committees are subject to approval by the Graduate Program Director; usually, the student’s Oral Exam committee serves as its core.

The committee has at least four members: at least three from the Department (full-time or adjunct), typically the three members of the student’s Oral Exam Committee, plus one external member from outside the Department – a scientist from another department at Stony Brook or another institution, who is not a collaborator or co-author, and who can give an independent evaluation of the thesis work. At least half of the committee, including the chair, must be full-time faculty, and the chair cannot be the student’s advisor. The committee should include at least one experimentalist, one theorist, and one member from a research field other than the thesis topic; the external member may also fill the experimentalist or theorist role.

The advisor, chair, and student must be physically present for the defense. Other members are preferred to attend in person but may participate virtually.

The committee must be approved at least 28 days in advance by both the Graduate Program Director and the Graduate School. The Doctoral Degree Defense form should be also sent to the Graduate Program Director at least four weeks before the scheduled date of the defense. A defense announcement needs to be prepared and sent to the Graduate program director at least 3 weeks before the defense.

The written Ph.D. thesis should be distributed two or three weeks before the exam, so that committee members can read the work carefully.

Good Standing

Core courses. Students are required to take the core courses, except if they passed the relevant Comprehensive Exam at the Placement level. If a student has not passed out of the course and does not pass the course with a grade B or better, they can either take the course again or petition for a “make-up” oral exam. The “make-up” oral exam may be set up to test the student’s knowledge in the particular area. For example, if a student got a B- in PHY 505 then the exam will cover “Electricity and Magnetism”. The time of the exam, and the three-member exam committee, will be chosen by the Graduate Program Director.

Comprehensive exam. If a PhD student has not passed the comprehensive exam at the beginning of their fifth semester, an ad hoc committee shall be set up. This committee will be chaired by the graduate program director and include the chair of the exam committee, any mentors assigned by the mentoring program, and any advisor if the student has started working with a professor. Additional members as considered appropriate may be added at the discretion of the graduate program director. This committee will decide whether the student shall be given an Oral Exam in the relevant subject(s), whether there are additional comprehensive exam attempts to be given, or whether they will have to leave the program. The criteria on which the decision will be made include past performance on the comprehensive exam, the standing of the student with regard to required courses, and their demonstrated potential to proceed to full-time Ph.D. research. It is the department’s general policy that if progress on these three criteria is satisfactory a student will be granted an opportunity to either take the written exam again or have an Oral Exam. In the event a student is denied this opportunity and asked to leave the program they may request that their case is discussed at a meeting of the full faculty as a final appeal.

Oral Exam. This exam can be repeated as long as the student is within the deadlines outlined above.

Tuition Waivers

If properly handled, Ph.D. students do not pay tuition, which is covered by a tuition scholarship. However, serious problems can arise for those who fail to follow instructions, respond to notices, or submit forms on time – sometimes resulting in large, irretrievable financial losses. Two things put this coverage at risk if you don’t follow through on them:

• New York State residency. Establish residency as soon as you’re eligible – see New York State Residency in Resources for the requirements, documentation, and deadlines.
• Your credit load. Register for the number of credits your tuition waiver requires each semester – see Registering for Classes and Credits in Resources for the current requirements and what happens if you go over.

Graduate Funding

Doctoral students are typically supported as a Teaching Assistant (TA) during their first two years, as outlined in their offer letter. After that, students are expected to find an advisor and move to research-grant support as a Research Assistant (RA). Some students have different arrangements, for example through graduate fellowships.

Doctoral students can also be supported as a TA during the summer. The TA Allocation Committee, described below, makes these decisions. First-year students requesting summer support receive strong preference. In Fall 2026, for example, every first-year student who requested summer support received eight weeks of it.

Students sometimes need additional funding. This can happen if a student has not yet found an advisor able to provide funding, or if an advisor’s funding is unexpectedly interrupted. In these cases, the Department may be able to provide extra TA support.

The TA Allocation Committee decides whether extra TA support is warranted. Its members are the Graduate Program Director (Derek Teaney), the Graduate Coordinator (Donald Sheehan), the Undergraduate Program Director (Dominik Schneble), and the Undergraduate Astronomy Director (Michael Zingale). The committee weighs:

1. Availability of TA lines.
2. How many semesters of extra TA support the student has already received.
3. Whether the student is in good academic standing and making research progress.
4. Any additional mitigating circumstances.

A third-year student in good standing who needs more time to find an advisor or settle into a research group will almost always receive additional funding. To date, the only students denied this funding have had serious, ongoing problems with professional conduct or with academic and research progress.

Concentrations

Beyond the standard PhD, we offer two concentrations for students with more specific interests. Each has slightly different requirements from the default track, particularly around the breadth and laboratory courses.

Astronomy Concentration

Students may elect to earn a Ph.D. in Physics with a concentration in Astronomy. (Note: you can work with an advisor in Astronomy without earning this concentration.) To complete the Ph.D. with this concentration, students need to take three courses chosen from PHY 521, 522, 523, 524 (the core astronomy sequence) and PHY 620 (Modern General Relativity) – that is, any three out of the five. The four core astronomy courses rotate on a four-semester cycle, one course per semester, while PHY 620 is offered every year. Students completing the astronomy concentration satisfy the standard breadth requirement in this manner. A possible astronomy sequence looks like this:

The particular order of the astronomy courses is determined by the actual course offering in those semesters. The order PHY540/PHY505 and PHY511/PHY512 can be switched according to the preference of the student. PHY 515 or PHY 517 (discussed above) can be taken in any semester during the first two years.

Physical Biology Concentration

This is an interdisciplinary concentration in connection with the Laufer Center for quantitative biology. Students usually declare their interest in this concentration not later than the end of the first semester. Postponing this decision will result in a loss of time. The main difference with the default physics concentration is a reduction of core courses by one course while several physical biology courses are required. Instead of the graduate lab students do rotations with faculty associated with the Laufer center. Also the Graduate Seminar is substituted by the Laufer Center Journal Club. The requirements for a Ph.D. Degree in Physics with Concentration in Physical Biology are as follows:

• Four Physics core courses: Electrodynamics (PHY 505), Quantum Mechanics I (PHY 511), Statistical Mechanics (PHY 540) and either Classical Mechanics (PHY 501) or Quantum Mechanics II (PHY 512).
• Two Core Courses in Physical Biology: Physical Biology (PHY 558) and Biological Dynamics and Networks (PHY 559)
• Biology For Physical Scientists (PHY 561)
• Two semesters of Teaching (PHY 600)
• Two semesters of Lab Rotations (PHY 584 / AMS 531)
• Two semesters of the Laufer Center Journal Club (PHY 665 / AMS 532)
• Two Life Science courses from an approved list. Currently, the following courses have been approved: Biomolecular Structure and Analysis (CHE 541), Molecular Genetics (MCB 503), Structural Biology and Spectroscopy (MCB 512), Graduate Biochemistry I (MCB 520), Cell Biology (MCB 656), Introduction to Neuroscience I (BNB 561), and Introduction to Neuroscience II (BNB 562)
• Passing of the Comprehensive Exam.
• An oral exam on a topic in Physical Biology
• Student should find an advisor working on the topic of Physical Biology

All courses have to be passed with a grade of B or better.

A typical course sequence for students in the Physical Biology concentration looks something like:

Additional information on the Concentration in Physical Biology can be found on the webpage of the Laufer Center which also has a list of course requirements.