/College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Physics and Astronomy

The Doctoral Defense

This page summarizes the steps to submitting the thesis and formally graduating in the PhD program. These steps include:

The most authoritative sources for everything below are the Graduate School’s own Graduation Information and Requirements page and its Student Resources page. If anything here ever seems to disagree with those pages, trust the Graduate School’s pages. Let us know so we can fix it here.

The recommended timelines below are relative to your own defense and to the end of the term, since they need to work for any term – for this term’s exact dates, see the Graduate School’s Graduate School Calendar. These are the official deadlines.

The PhD defense is an oral presentation of your dissertation before your Thesis Defense Committee. This committee is usually built around the same three people from your Oral Exam Committee, plus one external member. Six things need to happen, roughly in this order.

File for Graduation

Apply for graduation at the start of the term you intend to graduate, though you can apply any time up through the last day of classes. You’ll find the “Application for Graduation” on the Graduate School’s Graduation Information page (linked above) – PhD students apply through a Graduation Application Google Form linked there.

Make sure you’re registered for the term you graduate in – see Registering the Term You Graduate in Classes and Credits for what to register for if you’re finishing in the Summer. No harm is done if you later need to postpone: just use the Change of Graduation Date form, one of many you’ll find on the Graduate School’s Student Resources page (also linked above).

If you’d like to march in the May Doctoral Hooding Ceremony, that’s a separate registration step with its own, earlier deadline in April, well before the last day of classes. Completing the graduation application does not register you for the ceremony – you’ll be emailed instructions on how to register once your application is approved, so watch for that email and don’t wait until late in the term to apply if you want to make the ceremony.

Form Your Committee and Get Approval

Committee. At least four members are required: at least three from the Department (full-time or adjunct), plus one external member from outside the Department. The external member cannot be a collaborator or co-author. This lets them evaluate the thesis independently. At least half the committee, including the chair, must be full-time faculty. The chair cannot be your advisor. The committee should include at least one experimentalist, one theorist, and one member from a field other than your thesis topic. The external member can fill the experimentalist or theorist role. The advisor, chair, and student must attend in person. At most one other member may attend remotely.

A postdoc may serve in addition to these required members. In exceptional cases, with the Graduate Program Director’s permission, a postdoc can instead serve as the external member, if they had no scientific collaboration with you.

Stony Brook faculty from other departments automatically qualify as the external member, unless they’re affiliated with our Department. Otherwise, get a CV from the proposed member and bring it to the Graduate Program Director for approval.

Approval. Your committee needs two approvals, both due at least four weeks before your defense date. First, get informal approval from the Graduate Program Director, then complete the Department’s Committee Approval form. The Graduate Coordinator will then submit your committee to the Graduate School on your behalf, using the form on the Defense Committee Requirements page.

Write the Thesis

Prepare your dissertation according to the Graduate School’s Thesis and Dissertation Guidelines, using the official PhD Dissertation Template (.docx) and the Graduate School’s Page Numbering Tips.

Most students actually write their thesis in LaTeX rather than Word, even though there’s no official University LaTeX template. A web search will turn up unofficial ones that other Stony Brook Physics students have used and passed down – it’s your responsibility to check whatever you find against the current Guidelines above, since unofficial templates can fall out of date.

Submit to your committee. Send your committee the written thesis at least two weeks before the defense, so they have time to read it carefully. If you won’t be fully done in time, talk to your committee about whether they’re willing to review a slightly incomplete draft.

Submit the Defense Announcement

You cannot defend between terms – your defense date must fall within a regular term. Once you’ve picked a date with your committee, download and complete the Doctoral Defense Announcement form and email it to the Graduate Program Director for review, at least three weeks before the defense. Once approved, the Graduate Program Director submits it to the Graduate School as a PDF. About two weeks before the exam, confirm your defense has been posted on the Graduate School’s site – an unposted exam is invalid and would need to be repeated.

Plan your defense talk to run no longer than 45 minutes to an hour. Be ready for questions on any part of the thesis.

Collect Signatures and Submit to ProQuest

Right after the defense, route the Adobe Signature Page (PhD) to collect your committee’s electronic signatures. See the Signature Page Instructions for how this works. No extensions or exceptions are granted for this deadline.

Submit your final dissertation online through the ProQuest/UMI ETD Administrator site. In practice, the deadline is effectively the end of the term: the Graduate School posts a specific submission date each term on its Graduate School Calendar, typically just a day or two before commencement, and no extensions are granted.

There’s also a rule that submission must happen within three months of a successful defense, but if you defend at a normal point in the term, the end-of-term calendar deadline is the one that actually applies. Late submissions are not accepted, and submissions are reviewed in order, taking about three weeks after the deadline.

If you want a format check first, email a PDF to before officially submitting. You still have to submit to ProQuest by the deadline, regardless of when that review comes back. Complete the Survey of Earned Doctorates as well – it’s required.

After the Defense: Completion Letters, OPT, etc

Degrees are conferred in May, August, and December, but you don’t have to wait for the conferral date to start working if you’ve finished all requirements and filed your thesis. Fill out the Request for Letter of Completion and bring it to us – we’ll check your file, sign the statement, and the Graduate School will issue the document you need for employment, usually within a week of receiving your thesis and signature pages. You’ll remain a registered student through the end of the term, even if you start a job right after your defense.

If you’re an international student planning to stay in the US for a year after graduation, apply for Optional Practical Training (OPT). Start your job search early – some of our students receive offers well before graduation, but it takes time to sort out, and offers are more common at certain times of year.

You can stay on the payroll as an RA after submitting your dissertation, through the end of the term, as long as your advisor is willing and able to continue paying you. You’ll also remain a registered student through the end of that term, even if you’ve already left Stony Brook.

Finally, leave us a current email address and forwarding address so we can stay in touch.