The Temporary Advisor & The Advisory Committee

When a student first enters the program, the institutional Director of Graduate Studies will assign a temporary advisor.   This advisor will help with registration for the first semester, with development of a tentative plan of work, and with other matters of concern to the new student.

As soon as possible, an academic advisor should be selected by mutual agreement between the student and the faculty member.  The student should inform the institutional Director of Graduate Studies of the selection.  The academic advisor will thereafter help the student with all necessary academic matters.  The academic advisor must be a primary core BME faculty member.

Students conducting research under the supervision of a core BME faculty member will have that faculty member chair the student's advisory committee.  That faculty member will act as both academic and research advisor.

Students conducting research under the supervision of non-core BME faculty or non-BME faculty will have two co-chairs of the advisory committee.  One of the co-chairs must be a core BME faculty member who will serve as the student's academic advisor (also called the "academic co-chair").  The academic co-chair is responsible for monitoring the student's academic progress, ensuring that BME program requirements are met, and ensuring that BME department standards are maintained in the student's work.  The other chair will be the primary research supervisor (the "research co-chair") who may or may not be a BME faculty member.

The student or the advisor may terminate the relationship without prejudice if either judges there is good reason to do so.  In this event, a new advisor must be selected as soon as possible.

Once a doctoral student has selected an advisory committee chair, they should jointly select the members of the advisory committee. This committee will administer the written and oral portions of the doctoral preliminary examination, oversee the dissertation proposal and research progress, approve the dissertation and administer the final oral dissertation defense. The committee should consist of the chair and at least four other members approved in advance by the institutional Graduate School.  The committee is expected to have three or more members selected from the joint program BME Graduate Faculty and one or two additional members.  BME faculty members must constitute a majority of the committee members.