PhD Defense

The final steps of the process for the PhD are the completion of your PhD dissertation and the oral defense exam, which is open to the public. Your Dissertation Defense Committee consists of a minimum of three persons and a maximum of five, including at least two with primary appointment in ECE, of which at least one must be tenured or tenure-track faculty, and at least one outside member who is a tenured/tenure-track faculty member with primary appointment in a USC department other than ECE. T/TT faculty with courtesy appointments in ECE may serve as the outside member.

Note: the outside member of the qualifying and defense committees must be a full-time tenured/tenure-track faculty member at USC with the authority to chair a PhD committee in his or her home department/school. It is particularly important to check this for faculty from the Keck School of Medicine, many of whom do not have this privilege.

Plan for at least three weeks before the Defense Exam, to complete the PhD Committee System and Forms at https://myviterbi.usc.edu/ and upload your documents. This is the typical processing time for the committee to sign the form and process your request. If the Defense Committee has not been approved by the Dean or you have not uploaded your documents at least 7 days before the proposed exam date, you will not be able to take the exam at the scheduled time and a new date will need to be agreed upon and entered into https://myviterbi.usc.edu/ The student should additionally provide their advisor's administrative assistant and/or Student Services office with the following information about the defense so that it may be publicly posted a week in advance of the exam:

• Name
• Dissertation Title
• Dissertation Abstract
• Room for Defense
• Time

When you have passed your defense, the faculty will be notified to input the results of your exam into the form.

Prior to taking the defense, please check with the ECE Student Services Advisors to ensure you have completed all the requirements for the PhD. Once you have taken and passed the PhD defense, please check with the ECE Student Services Advisors to make sure that your STARS is updated.

In addition to the https://myviterbi.usc.edu/ forms all students must also complete the USC Graduate School's Thesis Center form here:

https://graduateschool.usc.edu/current-students/thesis-dissertation-submission/

Please read the directions and follow the steps for completion. Note that the completed Defense Committee form from PhD Committee System and Forms system needs to be uploaded to the Graduate School's Thesis Center system as part of their "checklist".