Systems Engineering PhD - Curriculum 581/582 (Res and DL)
Program Officer
Kristin Giammarco, Associate Professor
(831) 656-6032
kgiamma@nps.edu
Academic Associate
Douglas Van Bossuyt, Assistant Professor
(831) 656-7572
douglas.vanbossuyt@nps.edu
Brief Overview
The Department of Systems Engineering offers a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in Systems Engineering. Students take graduate level courses in systems engineering (as needed to pass the oral and written qualifying examinations), advanced graduate courses in systems engineering and an application domain, and perform research that leads to a dissertation involving some aspect of systems engineering. Research topics may be selected from a broad variety of studies of the systems engineering process, applications of systems engineering to solving complex problems, systems level modeling and simulation, and systems suitability assessment. Subject to approval of the student's dissertation committee chairman, dissertation research may be conducted away from NPS at cooperating facilities. Students must satisfy a one-year residency requirement. This may be met by completing periodic extended stays (nominally two weeks per quarter) at an NPS campus spread throughout the duration of the student's program.
Ideally, applicants should possess an M.S. degree in Systems Engineering. Applicants with only a B. S. degree or an M.S. degree in another discipline will be required to take a number of systems engineering courses (equivalent to the coursework portion of an MSSE degree program) to pass the qualifying examinations. Unless an M.S. thesis and any other ABET EAC accreditation requirements are also satisfied, an M.S. in Systems Engineering degree will not be awarded for this preparatory work.