ELEC 599 is the student's opportunity to demonstrate his/her ability to perform independent research and present results to a faculty committee in both oral and written formats. After jointly formulating a research topic and objective with the student's 599 advisor, all aspects of the project are the student's responsibility, including regular meetings with his/her advisor to ensure that the student's progress is on track.

ELEC 599 serves two roles:

1. It allows students to begin research early in the Ph.D. program. Projects selected often serve as catalysts for publications and thesis work.

2. It serves as the ECE Ph.D. qualifier and the student must pass with a grade of A to remain in the Ph.D. program.

ELEC 599 milestones:

• Nov. 21 - ECE Faculty will have project titles and abstracts posted for selection on the ECE web site.

• Dec. 5 - Students must submit (to Heather Dodge) their first, second and third choices of project/faculty advisor by 5pm.

• Jan. 12 - Students must submit (to Heather Dodge) their project abstracts and timelines by 5pm. (Sample - pdf)

• Feb. 27 - Students select and confirm two project committee members in addition to a project advisor, and complete an informal mid-term project progress evaluation with their advisor*. (Committee members may be at the rank of assistant, associate, full, emeritus professors and working adjunct lecturers selected from ECE as well as other Rice departments. At least one of the three members of committee must be from ECE. Please submit names of the committee members to Heather Dodge via email.)
  
  *Advisor can determine the format of the mid-term evaluation. Some advisors may require a written draft; some may require a verbal meeting; others may require a slide presentation.

• April - Students will begin scheduling oral presentations with their project committees and should reserve a conference room for one hour. The presentation is limited to 25 minutes and a maximum of 25 slides. The Project committee has up to 25 minutes to ask questions. Immediately following the exam, the committee will meet for written evaluations, which are then submitted to the ECE Graduate Committee for final evaluation and grading. Room reservation, scheduling and all logistics is the student's responsibility.

• April 24 - Students are to submit a written project report to each member of their committee as well as to Heather Dodge. Reports must not exceed 10 pages, should be formatted in 11 pt font and should follow the Latex or MS Word templates given for the IEEE transaction style.

• May 6 - Last day for oral presentations, most of which are made in the two weeks prior to commencement.

• May 11 - Upon completion of the oral presentation, the Graduate Committee meets to determine final ELEC 599 grades, after which individual evaluation letters will be sent to each student. At this meeting, the Committee will also determine whether or not previous Master's degrees will be accepted; the student will be informed in the evaluation letter.

Comments and questions to: hdodge@rice.edu