Student Seminar Presentation Policy
All graduate students are required to present three (3) quality technical research-based seminars as part of their Ph.D. training experience. Students must first pass the written comprehensive exam and also have their own reasonable, credible and sufficient scientific data to present before giving their first research seminar presentation. At least two of these seminars must be presented formally to the Department: at least one during the regular scheduled department seminar period, and attended by the Department faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and students. During the semester that the student presents a research seminar to the department, they must register for PHCEU 7890 “Department Seminar”, 1 credit, in order to be formally graded for their seminar performance. Should they pass this seminar, the student’s Ph.D. dissertation defense can qualify as one of the 3 “counted” seminars if this defense is attended by the majority of the department’s faculty and students, and advertised properly to target and recruit this audience.
Students must present a second department seminar if they have not presented their data a year or more beyond their oral preliminary examination. Students may substitute a podium or poster presentation at a national meeting for the third required seminar; alternatively, students may substitute two podium or poster presentations at a local or regional meeting for the third seminar. Students cannot present seminars in two consecutive semesters unless the amount and type of data presented are substantially different, and this is pre-approved by the Department chair. Please plan seminar presentations with sufficient time intervals to allow new data collection and improved technical reporting of sufficient rigor to reward a department audience.
In general, these seminar talks are expected to follow a conference presentation format, with an introduction, discussion of methods, results obtained and overall discussion for the presentation and then end with the integrative section. Students are strongly encouraged to practice the entire talk before mentors or group members prior to the actual seminar. Research mentors are expected to assist the student in the preparation of the presentation as it will be graded. Presenters are required to bring the research seminar evaluation form (downloaded from the Appendix) to their talk to give to attending faculty for written critique.
Seminar Schedule
Departmental seminars are currently held on Monday afternoons from 4:00 P.M.-5:00 P.M., during the academic school year months (i.e., September through June). The general method of assigning seminar dates for the Department is as follows: all students beyond their first year of graduate training will be scheduled to provide a seminar each academic year. A seminar number will be arbitrarily assigned to each student. Open dates in the seminar schedule will be filled in numerical order. The seminar calendar may be lengthened or shortened to accommodate the number of seminar-eligible students in the Department.
More Seminar Information
Tentative Schedule
A tentative schedule will be distributed at the beginning of the Spring and Fall semesters. The Fall 2023 seminar schedule can be found here.
Seminar Evaluation
In addition, at least 3 faculty members need to evaluate a student's seminar.
Seminar Waiver
Students may request a seminar waiver for scheduled seminars under certain circumstances. Waiver requests must be made at least 2 months prior to the assigned seminar date (contact the seminar coordinator), and approved by the student's faculty advisor. Additionally, the department chair will be notified of any student seminar cancellations.
Exchange of Seminar Dates
Seminar dates may be exchanged between students as desired. Notification of a date-exchange must be delivered to the seminar coordinator no later than two weeks before the earlier of the two exchanged dates.
Department Seminar Attendance
All department graduate students, whether formally enrolled in department seminar or not, must attend all department seminars.