The Dissertation Committee is composed of the Thesis Advisory Committee with the addition of an external committee member. Once constituted as such, the committee is considered the Dissertation Committee. The external committee member must: 1) hold a PhD, MD, or other appropriate advanced degree from an accredited institution; 2) have sufficient research experience and qualifications in the area of the student’s thesis to ensure an appropriate level of rigor for the examination; 3) be a member of a PhD granting institution and 4) not be a faculty member of ISMMS. Like the committee chair, this member must be someone that does/has not directly collaborated on the project of the student, has no coauthored papers or abstracts with the student, has no financial conflicts of interest with the student or project, and has not supervised any aspect of the work. The external committee member is a voting member of the committee. Prior to naming an external member to the committee, the student and mentor should write a brief summary of why the proposed external examiner is qualified for the role and state that they have no conflicts of interest. This document requires approval by the committee chair. Participation of non-voting members of the advisory committee in the Thesis Dissertation exam is optional; if they are present, they must remain silent.
When the student has completed the written dissertation document, it must be read and approved by the Dissertation Committee. The student should submit the Dissertation to each member of the Committee as early as possible, but no later than two weeks before the Defense. Committee members may reschedule the Examination if not given the appropriate amount of time to prepare for it. The Committee shall meet with the student for an oral Defense of the Dissertation. Before the final scheduling of the Defense, it is wise to obtain the Committee’s approval that the work is complete and appropriately presented. The student must register for the defense with the Registrar using the Dissertation Defense and Seminar Registration form. Once the defense has been registered, the Registrar will provide the Dissertation Defense Voting form. The student must include a Statement of Authorship page with the written document.
The possible outcomes are listed below. Dissertations approved as presented or pending minor revisions may be nominated for distinction.
Approved as Presented: No revisions required. Students must deposit within five weeks after the defense.
Approved Pending Minor Revisions: Minor additions and edits to the text, formatting and organizational changes, the addition of references to existing text, and additions/corrections to the preface. Minor revisions should be completed to the Chair's satisfaction and deposited within five weeks after the defense.
Approved Pending Major Revisions: Inclusion of additional data, the inclusion of additional data analysis, substantial additions to the text (e.g., the addition of subject matter to the introduction or discussion), or rewriting of whole sections. Major revisions must be resubmitted for approval by the Chair and two members of the examining committee and deposited within eight weeks after the defense.
Fail: The committee believes that the dissertation is not acceptable and will provide a detailed written description of the reservations about the examined dissertation and make further recommendations.
The mentor may apply to the Graduate School for reimbursement (up to $450) to defray travel expenses for the “outside” examiner. A letter of request, from the dissertation advisor, for the honorarium should be submitted to the Graduate School Office. The letter should include the name of the examiner, his/her/their social security number and mailing address. If the funds are being used to defray the cost of travel, original receipts should be sent with the letter of request. We will prepare and submit the check request. Unless otherwise instructed, the check will be sent directly to the examiner. If the dissertation advisor/department is covering a portion of the travel expenses, the letter of request should be sent with a check request (and original receipts), prepared by the dissertation advisor/department, indicating the amount and fund number (with appropriate signature) for the portion covered by the dissertation advisor/department. The Graduate School will complete the request and forward it to Accounts Payable. Unless otherwise instructed, the check will be sent directly to the examiner.
Option 1: Students have the option of writing a traditional dissertation. The written dissertation should conform to the guidelines detailed in the Levy Library PhD instructions.
Option 2: Students who wish to use published manuscripts in their dissertation must comply with the following standards regarding inclusion of their published work:
When a student is first (or co-first) author on a publication he/she/they can include the entire manuscript as a dissertation chapter. There is no need to rewrite it.
The manuscript must be converted into the proper thesis format; typeset pdfs cannot be included in the dissertation.
Students must obtain copyright permission from the journal if necessary and follow all journal rules regarding inclusion in a dissertation.
When the work represents collaborative research, each chapter should include a page of attributions where the contributions of others are explicitly stated.
If a student is a middle author on a published manuscript, the dissertation cannot include the text of the full manuscript. Instead, the student should write a new description of the work that includes only his/her/their data.
A paper that has been submitted, but not yet accepted, can also be used as long as the above guidelines are followed. In addition, the following text should be added to the acknowledgements section of the manuscript: “The data in this paper were used in a dissertation as partial fulfillment of the requirements for a PhD degree at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai."
Either option must involve a substantive piece of original and independent research grounded in an appropriate body of literature and theory.The thesis must contain a Statement of Authorship page which is available on the Graduate School forms website.
See Standards for Maintaining Satisfactory Progress
When a research mentor thinks his/her/their student is nearing a point of completion, the Advisory Committee should meet with the student and advisor to assess the student’s readiness to write a dissertation. This meeting should take place approximately 6 months before the anticipated dissertation defense. Students should update their list of publications and manuscripts in press on the Progress Report form before this meeting. At this meeting, the Advisory Committee will certify that the student is ready to write his/her/their dissertation and to schedule a defense date. This approval should be granted and a date set only if the student has, at a minimum, achieved the following:
met all of the required program milestones
completed all coursework and met the academic standards of the Graduate School
demonstrated mastery of the literature, conceptual skills, analytical skills, writing and presentation skills, experimental skills, record keeping skills and work ethic meets doctoral-level standards
contributing intellectually as a lead author, or equivalent, to at least one manuscript, published, in review, or ready for submission in a peer-reviewed journal. An exception to this requirement will require the unanimous approval by the Advisory Committee
When these criteria have been met, the student will be given a green light to enter the dissertation writing phase.
Copies of earlier successfully completed Program Dissertations are available for review in the Levy Library. Guidelines for the dissertation deposit can be found on Graduate School Forms website or at the Levy Library website.
A student should not present tables or figures that are not entirely his/her/their own work unless this is unavoidable because the data are necessary to develop the story; in that case the precise contribution of the student must be made clear and indicated on the contributions page. Detailed methods should not be presented for work not actually conducted by the student, including work done by the Core Facilities or other colleagues; such presentations convey the impression that the student actually carried out the procedures.
See Standards for Maintaining Satisfactory Progress
Once a student has successfully defended the dissertation, makes all relevant revisions, and is ready to deposit the Dissertation, s/he should deposit the dissertation electronically according to the instructions in the Doctoral Thesis Deposit Instructions document, available on the Graduate School Forms webpage. Students should submit the Student Checkout form before depositing the dissertation. This form can also be found on the Graduate School forms webpage. Failure to do this can result in a delay of the student’s graduation.
MD/PhD students should note the additional requirements/instructions for depositing a dissertation, which are detailed in Chapter 2.
The dissertation may be deposited at any time during the year, but the following deposit deadlines and enrollment requirements determine the date of the degree.
The degree is awarded on September 30, January 31, or the date of ISMMS’s annual Commencement in May. Students depositing by the January or April deadline will receive their diploma at Commencement. Those students who have a dissertation or thesis defense scheduled between April 16th and June 30th MAY be eligible to participate in the spring Commencement ceremony even though they have not met the April 15th thesis/dissertation deposit deadline. In cases where a student is allowed to participate, he/she/they will not receive a diploma at graduation. Instead, a diploma will be awarded on the conferral date (September 30th, of January 31) following the successful defense. Only students in good academic standing will be offered this courtesy. In this case, good academic standing means that all coursework has been completed with passing grades and the student’s mentor/committee fully expect the student will successfully defend his/her/their thesis/dissertation prior to June 30th. If either of these criteria is not met, the student will not be allowed to participate in the spring graduation ceremony.
Additionally, any student whose written document or oral defense was not acceptable to their committee will not be allowed to participate in Commencement until after successfully defending and depositing.
By March 1, students must notify the Registrar of their intent to deposit their thesis on or before the April or September deposit deadlines in order to be included in the Commencement exercises of that year. Commencement information will be sent during the spring semester to the student’s ISMMS email address recorded with the Graduate School Office.
If a student fails to deposit their thesis by the end of their seventh year in the PhD program (6th PhD year for MD/PhD students), their dissertation advisor must petition the Dean of the Graduate School in writing for permission to extend their student status. The petition must include a timetable for completing the dissertation and must also be signed by the student.
It is the dissertation advisor’s responsibility to inform the Graduate School Office, in a timely manner, the expected date that financial support will be terminated.
PhD students can maintain student status, with the stipend and health benefits covered by the dissertation advisor, after the defense, according to the following timetable:
Exceptions to this schedule will only be considered under extenuating circumstances. The dissertation advisor must request this in writing to the Dean of the Graduate School. The request must include a timetable for revisions and must confirm advisor’s financial responsibility for stipend and health coverage.
Student Housing: the Real Estate Office provides 4-5 weeks after the dissertation defense to vacate. Extensions may be granted by the Real Estate Office pending availability.
In addition to the closed session for the oral Defense, each student must present a 45-60 minute seminar on his/her/their work, open to the scientific community. The GSBS will announce the seminar to the "public” at least four weeks prior to the seminar. If the seminar is presented before the oral defense, the examiners should be invited to the seminar, but should be asked to refrain from asking questions, except those that will lead to making the seminar more interactive with the rest of the audience. More intensive questions will be asked in the actual private defense.
It is the student’s responsibility to check with the particular MTA for the scheduling format of the Defense and Seminar.
