Interdisciplinary Information Science PhD Program

This is a group of faculty members who formally evaluate your work at the qualifying, dissertation proposal, and dissertation stages. The committee must have at least three members, one of whom serves as chair (or two as co-chairs). Members must represent at least two academic units, one of which is UNT LIS, and have appropriate graduate faculty status. One member can be external to UNT, provided he/she holds a PhD and is approved by the Graduate School. After you pass qualifying, the advisory committee usually retains the same members, but is called the dissertation committee.

You should begin developing your committee in your first or second year of coursework, or at least choose your committee chair (also called major professor) to serve as your key research advisor. Committee members should be familiar with you and your work. When you ask them to serve, be prepared to discuss your dissertation topic in order to help them see how they can contribute their expertise. Your advisory committee must be formed before you qualify. The PhD Office will prepare a committee designation form, obtain signatures from all committee members, and submit the form to the Graduate School.

Yes. It is your right to change the committee structure, but you must fist consult with the faculty member(s) that you would like to remove or add. In addition, the PhD Office will confirm with the changes with the faculty. We will you help you to prepare a change-of-committee form and submit it to the Graduate School.