University of Florida Ph.D. Programs: A Comprehensive Overview

The University of Florida (UF) offers a wide array of Ph.D. programs designed to advance expertise and transform careers. This article provides a structured overview of the doctoral programs available at UF, covering key aspects such as program structure, requirements, and available specializations, making maximum use of the information provided by the user.

Doctoral Degrees at the University of Florida

The University of Florida provides various doctoral programs across different colleges and departments. These programs aim to prepare students for leadership roles in their respective fields through rigorous academic training and research opportunities.

Doctor of Audiology (Au.D.)

The Doctor of Audiology (Au.D.) program educates students in the detection, prevention, diagnosis, and management of hearing and balance disorders. This four-year graduate study program does not require knowledge of foreign languages.

Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD)

The Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) is an entry-level professional degree program. It prepares students to become leaders in the rapidly changing and dynamic contemporary health and human services delivery systems.

Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)

The entry-level Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) provides the required education necessary for graduates to take the professional license examination and embark on a professional career in physical therapy. This program addresses the increased demand for new therapies to assist individuals as they recover, adjust, and adapt to health changes, driven by life-saving medical interventions extending lives.

Read also: Applying to USF Doctoral Programs

Ph.D. in Medical Sciences

The University of Florida’s Ph.D. in Medical Sciences with a concentration in Health Outcomes and Implementation Science offers advanced training in health services research and implementation and prevention science.

Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Science

The Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Science addresses the need for junior researchers and faculty members in the rehabilitation sciences. This track encompasses the spectrum ranging from genes and molecules to biomechanics, providing students with a common background relative to movement science with an emphasis on application to rehabilitation.

Ph.D. Concentrations in Public Health

The College of Public Health and Health Professions offers several Ph.D. concentrations, including:

Health Services Research: This concentration prepares individuals to inform government officials, corporate leaders, clinicians, health plan managers, and others making choices about complex health-related problems and issues. Students learn to apply research methods and scientific knowledge to the study of health services organizations and systems.
One Health: This is a research-oriented degree that emphasizes working across public health, veterinary health, and environmental health disciplines to tackle difficult health problems.
Social and Behavioral Science: This concentration emphasizes the application of behavioral and social science perspectives to research on contemporary health problems, based on the assumption that health and health behavior are impacted by multiple psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural factors.

Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Core in Design, Construction, and Planning (DCP)

During the first three semesters of the Ph.D. program, an interdisciplinary core of courses is taught by DCP faculty members seeking to identify commonalities, diversity, and trends in the theory, methods, history, and scientific traditions of research and teaching among the five areas of specialization. Students study to understand and solve both regional and world problems through exploration, research, and practice. Students come to DCP from across the globe - Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the United States.

DMD-Ph.D. Joint Degree Program

The DMD-PhD joint degree program was established in 2012 and designed to train future leaders in academic research to tackle clinical disorders related to oral health. Students learn to apply modern research methods in a multidisciplinary environment.

Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences

The Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences provides a predoctoral educational experience that trains experimentalists and scholars prepared for a wide range of careers in biomedical science.

General Doctoral Requirements

The University of Florida has specific requirements for all Ph.D. programs, ensuring a standard of academic excellence.

Credit Requirements

The Ph.D. degree requires at least 90 credits beyond the bachelor’s degree or a minimum of 60 credits beyond an accredited and awarded master’s degree. This master’s degree must be formally documented via the Master’s Degree Acknowledgement (MDA) process.

Master’s Degree Acknowledgement (MDA)

The MDA is a formalized process to acknowledge the content, level, relevancy, and contribution of a student’s prior earned master’s degree earned at a non-UF institution or in another field of study within UF to the specific student’s doctoral program of study at the University of Florida. Academic unit program faculty must complete a holistic review of the individual’s official records and transcripts to specifically evaluate the previously awarded master’s degree. Such a review must consider the following elements: age of the degree, curricular level, grades, and grading schemes. The MDA must be submitted prior to the qualifying examination and will be documented in the student’s Student Information System record and is subject to review by the college and approval by the Graduate School.

Transfer of Credit

Any courses beyond a master’s degree taken at another university to be requested to be applied to the UF doctoral degree must be taken at an institution offering the doctoral degree and must be approved for graduate credit by the Graduate School of the University of Florida. All courses to be transferred must be graduate-level, letter-graded with a grade of B or better, and must be demonstrated to relate directly to the degree being sought. The total number of credits (including 30 for a prior master’s degree) that may be transferred cannot exceed 45, which means doctoral students must complete a minimum of 45 of 90 total credits required for the doctoral degree at the University of Florida.

Major and Minor Fields

A Ph.D. student does the major work in an academic unit specifically approved for offering doctoral courses and supervising dissertations. Minor work must be in an academic unit other than the major. With the supervisory committee’s approval, the student may choose one or more minor fields. If one minor is chosen, the supervisory committee member representing the minor suggests 12 to 24 credits of courses numbered 5000 or higher as preparation for a qualifying examination. If two minors are chosen, each must include at least 8 credits.

Leave of Absence

A doctoral student who seeks to take leave from UF for more than 1 semester should obtain written approval from the supervisory committee chair for a leave of absence for a designated period of time. This approved leave is kept on file in the student’s departmental record. It does not need Graduate School approval. If the student is absent for three or more consecutive terms, the student must reapply for admission on returning.

Supervisory Committee

Supervisory committees are nominated by the academic unit chair, approved by the dean of the college concerned, and appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School. The committee should be appointed as soon as possible after the student starts doctoral work and no later than the end of the second term of equivalent full-time study. The supervisory committee for a doctoral candidate comprises at least four members selected from the Graduate Faculty. At least two members, including the chair, must be from the academic unit recommending the degree. At least one member serves as the external member and must be from a different educational discipline, with no ties to the home academic unit. If a minor is chosen, the supervisory committee includes at least one Graduate Faculty member representing the student’s minor. If the student elects more than one minor, each minor area must be represented on the supervisory committee.

People without Graduate Faculty status may be made official members of a student’s supervisory committee through the special appointment process. For official recognition and tracking by the Graduate School, the student’s supervisory committee chair requests the special appointment, briefly explaining what the special appointment contributes to the supervisory committee. A special appointment is made for a specific supervisory committee. If the academic unit’s committee activity conflicts with broader University policies or practices, the external member is responsible for bringing such conflicts to the attention of the appropriate governing body. Therefore, the external member is prohibited from holding any official interest in the doctoral candidate’s major academic unit.

If a supervisory committee member cannot be present at the student’s final defense, a Graduate Faculty member in the same academic area may substitute for the absent committee member. The substitute should not sign the ETD signature page. No substitutes are allowed for the chair or external member of the committee.

The supervisory committee has several responsibilities:

Inform the student of all regulations governing the degree sought.
Give the student a yearly evaluation letter in addition to S/U grades earned for research courses 7979 and 7980.
Meet with the student when the dissertation is completed and conduct the final oral examination to assure that the dissertation is a piece of original research and a contribution to the body of knowledge.

Foreign Language Requirement

Any foreign language requirement for the Ph.D. is established by the major academic unit with approval of the college. The student should check with the graduate coordinator of the appropriate academic unit for specific information. The foreign language departments offer classes for graduate students starting to study a language.

Qualifying Examination

All Ph.D. candidates must take the qualifying examination. The examination, prepared and evaluated by the full supervisory committee or the major and minor academic units, is both written and oral and covers the major and minor subjects. Except for allowed substitutions, all members of the supervisory committee must attend the oral part (even if through remote means). At the time of the qualifying examination, the supervisory committee is responsible for deciding whether the student is qualified to continue working toward the Ph.D. If a student fails the qualifying examination, the Graduate School should be notified. A re-examination may be requested, but it must be recommended by the supervisory committee. Between the oral part of the qualifying examination and the date of the degree, there must be at least 2 terms.

Admission to Candidacy

A graduate student becomes a candidate for the Ph.D. degree when the student is granted formal admission to candidacy. Such admission requires the approval of the student’s supervisory committee, the academic unit chair, the college dean, and the Dean of the Graduate School.

Dissertation Requirements

Each doctoral candidate must prepare and present a dissertation that shows independent investigation and that is acceptable in form and content to the supervisory committee and to the Graduate School. The work must be of publishable quality and must be in a form suitable for publication, using the Graduate School’s format requirements. The student and supervisory committee are responsible for the level of quality and scholarship.

Before presentation to the Graduate School's Thesis, Dissertation, and Publications Office, the dissertation should be virtually complete and completely formatted (not in a draft format). Students must be completely familiar with the format requirements of the Graduate School and should work with one of the consultants in the Thesis and Dissertation Support Center to troubleshoot the dissertation before attempting to make a first submission to the editors in the Graduate School's Thesis, Dissertation, and Publications Office.

After changes have been made to the satisfaction of the supervisory committee, the Electronic Thesis or Dissertation (ETD) Signature Page is submitted electronically to the Graduate School's Thesis, Dissertation, and Publications Office, via the Graduate Information Management System (GIMS). This must be completed by the the Graduate School's Thesis, Dissertation, and Publications Office's Final Submission Deadline. Once submitted, the student should upload and submit the final pdf of the electronic thesis, using the Editorial Package portal found within the Graduate Information Management System (GIMS). The document will undergo a final review by one of the Graduate School Representatives. The Graduate School's Thesis, Dissertation, and Publications Office ensures that the format is acceptable, that all indicated changes were made, and that all of the hyperlinks work within the document. If accepted, no further changes are allowed. If changes are still required, the student should resubmit the corrected document as soon as possible. It is the responsibility of the student to ensure they have achieved Final Clearance status by the Final Clearance Deadline for the term in which they intend to graduate.

The work will be accessible through the University's Institutional Repository (IR). The student is automatically the copyright holder, by virtue of having written the dissertation. A copyright page should be included immediately after the title page to indicate this. The Graduate School's Thesis, Dissertation, and Publications Office does not accept copyright registration requests.

Dissertations must be written in English, except for students pursuing degrees in Romance or Germanic languages and literatures. Students in these disciplines, with the approval of their supervisory committees, may write in the topic language. A foreign language dissertation should have the Acknowledgments, Abstract, and Biographical Sketch written in English. Dissertations may include journal articles as chapters, if all copyright considerations are addressed appropriately. In such cases, Chapter 1 should be a general introduction, tying everything together as a unified whole. The last chapter should be general conclusions, again tying everything together into a unified whole. Any chapter representing a journal article needs a footnote at the bottom of the first page of the chapter: “Reprinted with permission from … ” giving the source, just as it appears in the list of references.

Final Examination

While submitting the dissertation and completing all other work prescribed for the degree, the candidate is given a final examination, oral or written or both, by the supervisory committee. The candidate and the supervisory committee chair or cochair generally are physically present together at the same location. The defense should be no more than three semesters, including the term in which the defense is completed, before the degree is awarded. All forms should be signed at the defense: the candidate signs and posts the UF Publishing Agreement to GIMS, after discussing their choices with the supervisory committee chair(s); the entire supervisory committee signs the ETD Signature Page and the Final Examination Report at the defense. If dissertation revisions are requested, the supervisory Committee Chair or their designee should withhold posting the ETD Signature Page to GIMS until all committee members are satisfied with the dissertation.

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