Length
I expect a PHD student with a Bachelor degree to graduate in 5 years and in 3-4 years with a Master degree.
You can go over the "student" tab to see how long the previous PHD students used to graduate
TA/RA support
I normally will hire a PHD student only when I have funding for the student for the next two to three years.
Normally, each student will be supported by TA for one year (2 semesters) and by RA after that.
TA salary is 2150$/month for 9 months with fee paid by yourself.
RA salary is 1800$/month + fee for the first year; $1800~$2000/month + fee for the rest depending on the funding sources.
Note that a department TA may have a higher monthly salary but the fees are not paid. So our salary offer for RA is pretty competitive as the fee for a year is approximately $4000.
Thesis Topic
In year 1, you will follow all projects you are interested in - this can be 3-4 projects.
You will select a topic between 2-3 available topics in your second year.
You will finalize your topic in Year 3.
Publication Requirement
At the time of graduation, you will need to have 1+ journal paper published, 2+ conference papers published, and 1+ journal papers under review. Equivalent to a journal paper publication is a patent application.
Journal publications: IEEE Transactions (on Smart Grid, Power Systems, Sustainable Energy, Power Delivery, etc.) or Applied Energy
Conference Publications: IEEE PES General meeting, T&D, ISGT
Patent application:
Travel Opportunities (Conference, workshop, training, etc.)
In year 1, regardless you have a paper submitted or not, if funding is available, you can attend the PES general meeting in July.
After Year 1, participation of conference/workshop/meetings is based on paper acceptance.
Please try to apply for IEEE travel support as this can save us considerate amount of funding to support more travels.
Travels scheduled for participation of project review meetings or CAPER/FREEDM meetings are based on the project budget.
Summer internship:
You will have at least 1 summer to go for an internship at a renowned institute.
Unless the project you are working on requires deliverable in summer, I will not ask you to support a project while you are on internship.
I suggest you use the summer well as if the intern experience only brings you marginal values towards your PHD topics, you should think of skip it.
When you work on a project under an NDA
When you are working on a project with NDA, please keep your results in a safe directory.
Log off your computer whenever you leave your work station - I suggest the log off time be set as less than 5 minutes.
Please do not copy data, scripts, and documents to personal computers.
Without consulting me and the other team members, you cannot publish the results or discuss the project with others.
Project backups and transfer of projects
Please keep backup your files.
Prepare to deliver your codes after your graduation to the students who will take over your work.