*Substitutions and additions will be considered by the CTS Pre-doctoral Program Co-Directors on a case-by-case basis, which allows for some flexibility as graduate course offerings evolve. The CTS program maintains a list of approved electives and plans biennial updates to its list of elective courses.

QUALIFYING EXAMINATION

Typically, candidates to the program will be accepted during their first year of study. In some circumstances candidates may be considered during the second year. Students in the CTS dual-title graduate degree program must meet the Ph.D. Qualifying Examination requirements in both their major area of study and the dual-title area. The Qualifying Exam will include both elements. The written and oral components of the Qualifying Exam will use the same format as described above, but the content will be expanded to include at least one clinical or translational element relevant to the student’s topic addressed in the scholarly paper. For example, this may take the form of a critical evaluation of a pertinent clinical trial or translational study in the published literature, development of a new clinical or translational hypothesis accompanied by a brief description of a study design to test the hypothesis, or identification of a potential barrier to translation of a novel discovery and a proposed solution to overcome the barrier.

Dual-title graduate degree students may require an additional semester to fulfill requirements for both areas of study and, therefore, the Qualifying Examination may be delayed one semester beyond the normal period allowable.

The qualifying examination committee for the dual-title Ph.D. degree must include at least one Graduate Faculty member from the CTS program. Faculty members who hold appointments in both programs’ Graduate Faculty may serve in a combined role.

COMMITTEE COMPOSITION

In addition to the general Graduate Council requirements for doctoral committees, the doctoral committee of a CTS dual-title doctoral degree student must include at least one member of the CTS Graduate Faculty. Faculty members who hold appointments in both programs’ Graduate Faculty may serve in a combined role. If the chair of the doctoral committee is not also a member of the Graduate Faculty in CTS, the member of the committee representing CTS must be appointed as co-chair.

COMPREHENSIVE EXAM

The CTS representative on the student’s doctoral committee will develop questions for and participate in the evaluation of the comprehensive examination. The comprehensive exam will require the student to demonstrate an understanding of the methods of translational sciences and an ability to apply them to problems in the student’s major field of study. When appropriate, the student will be expected to demonstrate a working knowledge of methods to evaluate and compare the outcomes of his/her research to related approaches already in existence.

DISSERTATION AND DISSERTATION DEFENSE

Students in the dual-title program are required to write and orally defend a dissertation on a topic that is approved in advance by their doctoral committee and reflects their original research and education in both their primary graduate program and CTS. Upon completion of the doctoral dissertation, the candidate must pass a final oral examination (the dissertation defense) to earn the Ph.D. degree. The dissertation must be accepted by the doctoral committee, the head of the graduate program, and the Graduate School.

ELECTIVE COURSES TO FULFILL REQUIREMENTS

Elective courses to fulfill requirements can be found on the CTS website: https://ctsi.psu.edu/education/dual-title-phd/handbook/.  

SAMPLE PLAN OF STUDY FOR DUAL-TITLE NURSING & CTS

Dual-Title Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing & CTS | Full-Time Study | 55 Credits (minimum) + NURS 602

Dual-Title PhD in Nursing & Bioethics

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