Thesis Proposal Process
All committees require approval and the committee list with full names and affiliations must be sent to CSD PhD Support as soon as the student and their advisor determine who they want to comprise the committee, but no later than two weeks prior to your intended talk date, so it can be confirmed.
Please remember that all committee members are required to attend your thesis proposal and at least two thesis committee members (the Chair and one additional member) must be physically present.
Forming your thesis committee
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The Doctoral Thesis Committee should have a minimum of 4 members, which includes the Chair, and must consist of:
- at least one tenure- or research-track CSD faculty
- two additional members of SCS tenure- or research-track faculty and/or approved faculty within Carnegie Mellon
- at least one external committee member
The thesis advisor should be tenure-track faculty unless otherwise approved.
We use "External" to denote an expert outside of CMU, however, experts within CMU can be allowed under special circumstances.
The committee should include only tenure-track and research-track faculty unless the faculty member is explicitly named on the Approved List. In particular, faculty outside SCS with courtesy appointments and other tracks do not apply, unless that faculty member is named on the Approved List.
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This list includes Computer Science Department faculty who are able to serve on thesis committees. While there is significant overlap this is is not the CSD thesis advisor list.
Approved CSD Faculty for Thesis Committees -
Due to the sheer number of faculty in each department, and the fact that the faculty change periodically, we have only provided links to each department faculty directory for your reference.
Note that not all faculty listed in other SCS departments satisfy the requirements to serve on a thesis committee. You need to check with the Doctoral Programs Manager as specified in the PhD Handbook.
Computational Biology Department
Human-Computer Interaction Institute
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Faculty outside SCS and faculty tracks other than tenure or research do not qualify, unless that faculty member is named on this Approved List.
Suggested additions to the Approved List should be made by contacting the Department Head. A CSD faculty advocate is required for anyone wishing to be added to the list.
Approved Courtesy Faculty for Thesis Committees Name Department Leman Akoglu Heinz College Jonathan Aldrich Software And Societal Systems Department George Amvrosiadis CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering David Brumley CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering Beidi Chen CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering Giulia Fanti CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering Alan Frieze Mathematical Sciences Gregory Ganger CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering Virgil Gligor CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering Limin Jia CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering Fatma Kilinc-Karzan Tepper School Zico Kolter Dean's Office Swarun Kumar CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering Golan Levin College of Fine Arts Brandon Lucia CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering Jim McCann Robotics Institute Heather Miller Software And Societal Systems Department R. Ravi Tepper School Roni Rosenfeld Machine Learning Department Russell Schwartz Computational Biology Vyas Sekar CIT - Electrical and Computer Engineering Mary Shaw Software And Societal Systems Department Katia Sycara Robotics Institute Bryan Wilder Machine Learning Department Eric Xing Machine Learning Department Jun-Yan Zhu Robotics Institute -
Faculty outside SCS and faculty tracks other than tenure or research do not qualify, unless that faculty member is named on this Approved List.
Suggested additions to the Approved List should be made by contacting the Department Head. A CSD faculty advocate is required for anyone wishing to be added to the list.
- Steve Awodey - Philosophy
- Jeremey Avigad - Philosophy
- Lujo Bauer - ECE/CyLab
- James Hoe - ECE
- Gauri Joshi - ECE
- Michael Kaminsky - CSD
- Raj Rajkumar - ECE
- Aswin Sankaranarayanan - ECE
- Alan Scheller-Wolf - Tepper
- Bradley Schmerl - ISR
Thesis Proposal Checklist
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Thesis proposals should be scheduled only during academic periods, before Doctoral Student Review Meetings (DSR) -- not during holidays, weekends, etc., and should be scheduled during normal business hours. Exceptions must be approved by the Doctoral Programs Director.
Before requesting to schedule your proposal presentation you should have already provided the full names and affiliations of your committee to CSD PhD Support to be confirmed.
- Check the CSD PhD Talks Scheduling Calendar and then work your thesis committee members to determine two or three possible dates.
- Email CSD PhD Support to request adding your talk to the schedule and to assure the day and time your committee agrees on isn't already requested for another thesis proposal or oral (no conflicts allowed). Confirmed requests may not show up immediately on the scheduling calendar.
- We will reserve an appropriate room and confirm your date and time.
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All committee members should receive a copy of your proposal document at least three weeks in advance of your talk date.
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- Once the date, time, and room are confirmed: AT LEAST 7 days ahead of the talk date, send the following items to CSD PhD Support:
- Name as you prefer it on public announcements (or to match name for diploma)
- Talk Title
- Date, Talk Start Time, and Room (for confirmation)
- Abstract (electronic text format) - 350 word maximum for use on the calendar listing and poster announcement of your talk.
- Names of thesis committee members and affiliation (fully spelled out) for external member(s)
- Pointer to the URL of the thesis proposal document or a summary (more detail than the abstract) as either .pdf or a website.
- Your Zoom link and the Live streaming form (HUB PDF form) if you will have remote audience attending. (form and link not needed if it is only committee attending remotely)
- Once the date, time, and room are confirmed: AT LEAST 7 days ahead of the talk date, send the following items to CSD PhD Support:
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The department does not record thesis proposal presentations.
- Please set up your own Zoom link for remote committee member(s).
- Once your advisor(s) join the Zoom you should make them co-host(s).
- A Live Streaming form is not needed if the only remote attendee(s) will be external thesis committee member(s).
You are welcome to have remote audience attend.
- The Live Streaming form is only needed if you will be allowing CMU community or external attendees to remotely attend your defense.
- Please fill out the form and have your advisor sign it.
- Send the form and your Zoom link to csd-phd-support@cs.cmu.edu along with your talk announcement information 7-10 days in advance of your talk. This way we know to include your Zoom link in the announcement.
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- Be sure you arrange time to check the A/V in the room and that you are comfortable setting up Zoom or other remote access for any external committee member who may not travel to attend in person or for streaming your talk.Talk length
- We allow 1.5 hours for presentation, question & answer, and committee processes.
- The proposal talk should be approximately 45-50 minutes, followed by questions from the committee, questions from the audience, private meeting of the committee and private meeting with the speaker.
- A 2.5 hour room reservation is usually scheduled, which includes set-up time and some "clean-up" time for wrap up for you and your committee.
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The Chair of your committee should send email to CSD PhD Support to confirm the committee has agreed the proposal was successful. The proposal will then be entered into the student record to complete that milestone.