Materials Science and Engineering

Degrees Offered

Master of Science in Engineering
Doctor of Philosophy

Facilities for Graduate Work

Extensive facilities that include laboratories for research and instruction and faculty and student offices are located mainly in the Engineering Teaching Center, W. R. Woolrich Laboratories, the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Building, Robert A. Welch Hall, Robert Lee Moore Hall, and the Engineering-Science Building and at the J. J. Pickle Research Campus. Laboratories with mechanical testing equipment, powder processing equipment, polymer processing and characterization equipment, nanostructure characterization equipment, corrosion testing equipment, scanning and transmission electron microscopes with microprobe capability, surface characterization equipment, optical microscopes and metallographs, X-ray diffraction equipment for powder and single crystal studies, and crystal growing, high pressure, ultrasonic, laser, magnetic, and microwave facilities are used by students and faculty members. Thin film, radioisotope, and metallography laboratories, ultraclean laboratories, and a wide range of processing equipment round out the facilities. Extensive service installations are available, including Academic Computing and Instructional Technology Services, as well as an electronics shop, a machine shop, and glassblowing services.

Areas of Study

Contemporary developments and challenges in materials science and engineering cut across the traditional lines of engineering and science. Because of this interdisciplinary character, it is possible and essential to provide great flexibility in planning the individual programs of graduate study for students in this area to suit their interests and objectives. Graduate study and research are offered in the broad areas of the structure and properties, thermodynamics and kinetics, materials growth, processing, and producibility and reliability, and chemistry and physics of ceramic, electronic, ionic, magnetic, metallic, optical, polymeric, and structural materials.

Graduate Studies Committee

The following faculty members served on the Graduate Studies Committee in the spring semester 1998-1999.

Sanjay K. Banerjee	Michael P. Marder
Joel W. Barlow	Robert Martinez
Michael F. Becker	John T. McDevitt
David L. Bourell	Mark E. Mear
A. Bruce Buckman	Tessie J. Moon
Joe C. Campbell	Dean P. Neikirk
Alex de Lozanne	Donald R. Paul
Russell D. Dupuis	Llewellyn K. Rabenberg
Zwy Eliezer	Kenneth M. Ralls
John B. Goodenough	Gregory J. Rodin
Peter F. Green	Isaac C. Sanchez
Adam Heller	Juan M. Sanchez
Paul S. Ho	Richard A. Schapery
Archie L. Holmes Jr.	Hugo Steinfink
Brian A. Korgel	Ben G. Streetman
William J. Koros	Eric M. Taleff
Desiderio Kovar	Al F. Tasch
Dim-Lee Kwong	Isaac Trachtenberg
Jack C. Lee	Rodger M. Walser
Kenneth M. Liechti	Harovel G. Wheat
Douglas R. Lloyd	John M. White
Arumugam Manthiram	C. Grant Willson

Admission Requirements

Master's degree. An applicant must hold a bachelor's degree in engineering or in one of the physical sciences and must be recommended by the Graduate Studies Committee.

Doctoral degree. An applicant usually must hold a master's degree in engineering or in one of the physical sciences and must be recommended by the Graduate Studies Committee or by the graduate adviser. The master's degree requirement may be waived by the Graduate Studies Committee in the case of an exceptionally well-qualified applicant who holds a bachelor's degree and who petitions to pursue the doctorate directly.

Degree Requirements

Master of Science in Engineering

Thirty semester hours of work are normally required, consisting of twenty-four semester hours of coursework and six semester hours of research leading to a thesis. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the area, it is not possible to specify all the courses to be taken. Instead, a student is required to take fifteen to eighteen semester hours in materials science and engineering, including twelve hours in core curriculum courses. Six to nine additional semester hours of supporting work must be outside the major area. (Individual core curriculum requirements may be waived by the graduate adviser, if the student has equivalent credit on entering the program.) A maximum of nine semester hours of upper-division coursework may be counted toward the required thirty hours, but no more than six of the nine hours may be in either the major or the supporting work. All coursework must be approved by the graduate adviser. The thesis is based on an acceptable program of research conducted under the supervision of a member of the Graduate Studies Committee.

Students may petition the Graduate Studies Committee for approval to pursue the master's degree program with report or the program without thesis or report.

Doctor of Philosophy

Each student must pass a comprehensive qualifying examination to be admitted to doctoral candidacy. The coursework necessary for admission to candidacy is typically forty-eight semester hours in organized courses, taken on the letter-grade basis; these hours may include organized coursework taken as part of the master's degree program. All coursework must be approved by the chairman of the Graduate Studies Committee or by the graduate adviser. The Program of Work must include core curriculum courses, as required by the Graduate Studies Committee, and nine semester hours of supporting work. Additional coursework is determined by the student and his or her dissertation committee after the student has been admitted to candidacy. This work must include at least a full year of dissertation research. The award of the degree is based on the candidate's demonstration of mastery of the major area, supporting work outside the major area, and the presentation and oral defense of original research before a dissertation committee whose members are drawn from the Graduate Studies Committee and must include an examiner from another area.

Additional Requirements

If a student is admitted to the program with a background insufficient for graduate study in materials science and engineering, he or she must complete preparatory coursework in addition to the degree requirements. The additional work will be specified by the graduate adviser. Completion of some of the additional coursework may be required before the student begins the work for the degree.

For More Information

Campus address: Engineering Teaching Center (ETC) 9.112, phone (512) 471-1504, fax (512) 475-8482

Mailing address: Materials Science and Engineering Program, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712-1063

E-mail: tmi@mail.utexas.edu

URL: http://www.utexas.edu/academic/tmi/

Materials science and engineering courses: MSE

Contents |  Chapter 1 |  Chapter 2 |  Chapter 3
Chapter 4 |  Chapter 5 |  Appendix

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