Candidacy Information

The candidacy exam consists of a presentation to the members of the student's doctoral committee (in an open forum) in which the student reviews some of the published research in the chosen subfield of specialization. The exam will normally be based on a single article chosen by the student with guidance from their research advisor. The student is expected to present the findings, place the work in context, and provide a critique of the published work. In response to the presentation, the student will be asked questions from the general audience. After this, the student will be asked additional questions from the doctoral committee in a closed session.

Typically, the doctoral committee will ask questions that relate the research to more fundamental physics and not require the student to know the entire literature of the discipline or subfield, although some contextual knowledge will be expected. Normally, the talk is roughly 40-50 minutes, and the public portion of the candidacy exam, with questions, is roughly an hour. The closed session with the doctoral committee is typically about 90-120 minutes. These are only guidelines, and a particular committee may require more or less time to evaluate a prospective Ph.D. candidate.

The candidacy exam is a pass/fail exam. The department will arrange for the committee signature form for the exam to be ready for committee members to sign and provide the form to the committee chair. This should be submitted to the main office with all committee member signatures. If a committee member participates remotely, they may sign the paperwork digitally or write a permission e-mail to have another committee member sign on their behalf. In accordance with the graduate catalog for the Ph.D. degree, the committee will pass a student that has demonstrated the following abilities in the candidacy exam:

• Understand and critically evaluate the published work chosen by the candidate and its relation to the broader field of research
• Explain physics and/or astronomy principles pertaining to the published work chosen by the candidate
• Communicate effectively through oral presentation, aided by slide presentations, chalkboard discussion, etc.

If a student does not meet the requirements to pass the candidacy exam, the committee can recommend the student repeat the exam in part or in full. The committee can also recommend an outright fail, such that the student will not be given another opportunity to retake the exam.

Three committee members must be from the faculty of the WVU Department of Physics and Astronomy. The fourth member may be internal or external to WVU. If external to WVU, the fourth member must hold a Ph.D. (or equivalent degree) in a field related to the candidate's dissertation research. If internal to WVU, the fourth member must be from a department other than the Department of Physics and Astronomy. All members must have a Ph.D. or equivalent degree.