Initial Meeting (“Pre-prelim”)

Committee Selection

The Thesis/Prelim Committee consists of the advisor plus four additional faculty, one of whom should be outside the Department (joint appointees are not “outside”). Program students are reminded to pay attention to any special, Program-specific committee requirements.

For the preliminary examination, the advisor will be replaced by one member from the Graduate Advisory Committee who will serve as chair for the preliminary exam. Members from the Advisory Committee serve as chairs of all the exams for a given year to “standardize” the exams and ensure their fairness. Note that, even if other Advisory Committee members are on the Thesis/Prelim Committee, the stand-in chair will be an additional Advisory Committee Member (ACM); this stand-in chair will be appointed by the Advisory Committee.

Each student, after consultation with her/his mentor and each proposed committee member, provides the Biochemistry Graduate Studies Office (BGSO) with a list of names of four faculty (one outside the Department) who have agreed to be on the Thesis/Prelim Committee. It should be noted that the Graduate Advisory Committee will discuss and approve the final composition of the committee.

The Initial Committee Meeting

The initial meeting takes place before May 1st of the second year. The overall purpose is to acquaint the faculty members with the student and the student’s proposed research project. Students should arrange the meeting and report its time and place to the BGSO.

Students present a brief progress report on research accomplished to date and a brief idea of the general plans for the Thesis research project. To facilitate the presentation, the student prepares a written summary (2-3 pages) and gives it to the committee members before the day of the meeting. The summary includes a brief statement of the problem and its significance, the goal of the research, and the proposed approach. Students attempt to describe the flow of the project with a view toward defending it in the preliminary exam the following Fall and toward developing it into a Thesis project.

The ACM should be given a copy of the written summary and included in the initial meeting if he or she desires. The thesis mentor will be the “chair” of the initial meeting and all meetings subsequent to the prelim exam.