Chemical Engineering, Ph.D.

(PCHEN)

The departmental-level academic course plan for each student will be developed in consultation with and approved by the student’s graduate advisory committee. The committee will include the student’s major advisor and at least two additional members of the graduate faculty such that the LSU Graduate School’s requirements for graduate committees are satisfied.

The PhD degree requires a dissertation. Thirty (30) hours of credit at the graduate level must be earned. The curricular requirements include:

• at least 18 hours at the 7000 level or above, exclusive of any type of independent studies credit except for special project credit earned, and must include a minimum core requirement of 12 credit hours in the chemical engineering core courses: CHE 7110 Mathematical Methods in Chemical Engineering (3) , CHE 7120 Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (3) , CHE 7130 Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transport (3) , and CHE 7140 Chemical Reactor Design Methods (3) .
• The remaining 12 hours of graduate level course work may be a formal minor in another department or may consist of a variety of courses selected from several departments, including chemical engineering.
• Students already holding the master’s degree can transfer up to 9 hours of course work, with a maximum of 2 core courses eligible for transfer. Every credit transfer is at the discretion of the Director of Graduate Studies. Six hours of 7000 level chemical engineering courses must be taken at LSU, in addition to any core courses whose equivalent was not taken for the master’s degree.

The student must pass a written qualifying exam within one year of enrollment. Within one year of successfully passing the qualifying exam, a PhD student should take the general exam. The general exam is an oral defense of a written plan for doctoral research. A final exam must also be passed and this is an oral defense of the doctoral dissertation.