Program Overview
The Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at KU integrates biological and chemical sciences, providing students with a comprehensive understanding of molecular processes. The program emphasizes research excellence, offering competitive stipends, tuition coverage, and opportunities for internships and international research collaborations. Students complete core courses, take a Foundation Exam, and defend a dissertation to earn their degree, typically within 5.3 years.
Program Outline
Degree Overview:
The Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmaceutical Chemistry is a broad discipline that integrates diverse areas of science ranging from biological to chemical sciences. The program offers a series of core courses designed to hone the student's skills in areas considered essential in understanding problems of biological, biophysical and chemical processes at the molecular level. Students will become familiar with aspects of physical, organic and analytical chemistry, chemical kinetics, biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics, and biotechnology including vaccines. The program emphasizes excellence in research, ensuring students can maximize efforts on their research projects towards earning the Ph.D. degree in a timely fashion. Students receive a competitive stipend, tuition, and basic health insurance. They can also be selected to participate in the Takeru Higuchi and Nigel Manning Ph.D. Intersearch Program, allowing them to conduct a portion of their research at the Victorian College of Pharmacy at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Additionally, students are encouraged to participate in other industrial and/or academic internship programs the department offers.
Assessment:
Students must complete eight (8) core courses and then take the Foundation Exam. They must also take one elective course, which may be from the courses offered by the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry or from other science and engineering departments on campus with prior approval from the graduate director. This elective requirement must be completed prior to undertaking the comprehensive examination at the end of year 2. The comprehensive examination is based on a series of oral questions based upon an oral presentation of a research proposal focused on their research. Each Ph.D. candidate must submit and defend a dissertation resulting from research of sufficient originality and quality for publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Teaching:
The program provides a series of core courses designed to hone the student's skills in essential areas. The department places emphasis on excellence in research making every effort to ensure that students can maximize efforts on their research projects toward earning the Ph.D. degree in a timely fashion. The department offers a distance Ph.D. program for highly qualified students who excelled while completing the Distance M.S. degree program.
Other:
The median time for students to complete the Ph.D. degree is 5.3 years. A number of fellowship awards are offered to recognize academic superiority and to assist meritorious students in the timely completion of their degree programs. The Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry is a Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship Program partner at KU. The program provides a generous stipend and tuition to outstanding students for 4 years of graduate study. At the department level, the Higuchi, Lindenbaum, Rytting, Stella, and Waugh Fellowships are awarded each year to incoming graduate students with high promise.
