Admission and Academic Requirements

      The CU Denver Civil Engineering PhD Program requires students to have a master's degree in Civil Engineering or a closely related  engineering field. Applicants without a BSCE are required to complete deficiency courses emphasizing civil engineering fundamentals. Admission and course requirements are those of the University of Colorado Graduate School, i.e., a minimum GPA of 3.0. Prior research experience, awards, as well as recommendation letters are used to evaluate the students potential for success. Minimal course requirements include 30 semester hours of courses numbered 5000 or above, but the number of formal course hours will ordinarily exceed this minimum. In addition, the student must also register for a total of a least 30 hours of doctoral thesis credit, with not more than 10 hours in any one semester. The minimum residence requirement shall be six semesters beyond the bachelor's degree, two of which must be consecutive in one academic year. Students in the PHD program must maintain a GPA of 3.25 or better and must pass the following benchmarks: 1) A preliminary exam administered at the end of Year 1 to assess coursework and readiness for research; 2) A comprehensive exam and thesis proposal defense to identify the dissertation topic, demonstrate background information on that topic and a clear methodology and end point for the dissertation; 3) A PhD defense which round off the research, testing the integrity of the work as well as the ability of the student to think beyond their topic. 4) It is expected that a successful PhD student will publish at least 2 peer reviewed journal articles and present at atleast 2 national conferences.

Curriculum & Courses Offered: New graduate courses and programs include programs in GIS (7 new courses, Master of Engineering degree), hazardous wastes and environmental management (6 new courses), transportation (7 new courses, Master of Engineering degree), structures (4 new courses with an emphasis in forensics and infrastructure, geotechnical (3 new courses in geo-environmental), and water resources (4 new courses in urban stormwater). Also, a  Civil Engineering Systems track was introduced in May, 2001, to promote inter-disciplinary research on Civil Infrastructure System.  A PhD seminar was established in 1999 for PhD students in all disciplines to get an opportunity to present, discuss and critique various research projects.. Short descriptions of these study areas and the courses offered in each are listed in Table 4.

Depending on the student's dissertation, elective courses offered by the Departments of Applied Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, and Environmental Sciences can also be incorporated into the student’s program of study.

Civil Engineering Systems: Civil Engineering Systems is a relatively new sub-discipline that integrates selected material from other programs within Engineering and related disciplines that have relevance in most systems contexts. CE Systems students learn the fundamentals of systems science, operations research, information technology, and systems modeling and analysis; and become highly qualified to meet a functional or performance requirement in some Civil Engineering domain. At CU Denver students can specialize according to their preference in, 1) environmental systems, 2) water resources systems, 3) transportation systems, and 4) energy infrastructure systems. Civil Engineering Systems is multidisciplinary and works at many levels of abstraction. From analyzing the ecosystem response to pollutants, forecasting flash floods, and real-time operations of highway transportation networks, the CE Systems engineer is a most adaptable individual, and among the most valuable people on a design team. Finally, systems design engineering prepares the student for leadership in a complex technological society that requires interdisciplinary thinking capability to meet future needs for complex, balanced decision-making.