Biostatistics PhD Curriculum Overview
The following five courses are required for all Ph.D. students and compose the biostatistics core of the program.
| Course | Title | Hours |
| PHC 7066 | Large Sample Theory | 3 |
| STA 7346 | Statistical Inference | 3 |
| STA 7179 | Survival Analysis | 3 |
| PHC 7056 | Longitudinal Data Analysis | 3 |
| STA 7249 | Generalized Linear Models | 3 |
The courses “Survival Analysis”, “Longitudinal Data Analysis”,
and “Generalized Linear Models” make up the methods core of
the program. These are advanced courses which cover the essentials of statistical
methods for different types of data. The courses “Large Sample Theory”
and “Statistical Inference” form the theoretical part of the
core and will provide students with the mathematical foundation necessary
to do their dissertation research
In addition, each student must complete six credits from the Public Health
Core.
| Course | Title | Hours |
| PHC 6001 | Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health | 3 |
| PHC 6102 | Introduction to Public Health Administrative Systems | 3 |
| PHC 6313 | Environmental Health Concepts in Public Health | 3 |
| PHC 6406 | Psychological, Behavioral, and Social Issues in Public Health | 3 |
PHC 6001 is required and then the student may choose one of PHC 6102 or 6313 or 6406.
Students are also required to complete at least three additional biostatistics/statistics
courses. Among the courses that may be used for this requirement are the
following:
| Course | Title | Hours |
| STA 6178 | Genetic Data Analysis | 3 |
| STA 6209 | Design and Analysis of Experiments | 3 |
| STA 6247 | Advanced Topics in Design and Analysis | 3 |
| STA 6466 | Probability Theory I | 3 |
| STA 6467 | Probability Theory II | 3 |
| STA 6826 | Stochastic Processes I | 3 |
| STA 7347 | Advanced Inference | 3 |
At least three Ph.D. elective courses are currently offered every year in addition to the core courses. Additional electives are also offered under the “Special Topics” number, STA 6934; examples of offerings in recent years including “Analysis of Spatial Data”, “Microarray Data Analysis”, and “Applied Bayesian Methods”. Other courses will be selected by students in consultation with their supervisory committees. We expect the development of additional electives in the first few years of the program, including methodology for imaging, spatial data, and causal inference.
Cognate Requirement:
Students are required to explore a selected cognate field in some depth.
The field and courses must be approved by the student’s advisor. At
least 6 credits of ordinally graded courses in the cognate field must be
completed. Some examples of cognate areas include Genetics, Epidemiology,
and Environmental Health. For Public Health cognate fields, 6 credits beyond
the Public Health core are required.
Consulting Requirement:
Students must acquire experience in the planning of experiments and establishing
a collaborative interaction with an investigator. This requirement is fulfilled
by registering for STA 6092 (3 credits).
A minimum of 90 credits beyond the bachelor's degree is required for the
doctoral degree. Formal course work accumulated by students should be in
the neighborhood of 60 credit hours. The remaining hours will be in PHC
7980 (dissertation research). The credits are broken down as follows:
| Component | # of credits |
| Core Biostatistics courses | 15 |
| Core Public Health courses | 6 |
| Biostatistics/statistics electives | 9 |
| Consulting requirement | 3 |
| Cognate requirement | 6 |
| Previous M.S. in Biostatistics/Statistics | 30 |
| Dissertation | 21 |
| Total | 90 |
Qualifying Exams
After the completion of the set of five core courses with an average grade
of no lower than “B”, usually at the end of the first year,
the students will take the Part I qualifying exam consisting of questions
from the following core Ph.D. courses: PHC 7066, STA 7346, STA 7179, and
PHC 7056. The Part II qualifying exam is an oral exam in which the student
presents his or her proposal to the Ph.D. committee. After successfully
passing Part I and Part II qualifying exams, the student is admitted to
candidacy and must complete dissertation research, write and defend the
dissertation (following Graduate School rules) and submit the dissertation
to the Graduate School.
