Civil, Construction and Environmental

• Overview
• Faculty
• Certificate
• M.Eng.
• M.S.C.E.
• Ph.D.
• Courses

Admission Requirements

In addition to the UAB Graduate School admission requirements, requirements for admission to the program leading to the Doctorate of Philosophy in Civil Engineering degree include the following five criteria:

1. An undergraduate engineering degree from an ABET accredited program or a master's degree in engineering. Applicants who do not meet this criterion but who have an outstanding academic record in an engineering degree program not accredited by ABET, or in a baccalaureate or master's degree program in a related field, may be admitted on probation. Students admitted in this category will be required to complete a sequence of undergraduate or graduate courses in addition to the regular requirements of the MSCE degree. This set of extra requirements will be specified in writing at the time of admission to the program;
2. An undergraduate GPA of 3.0 or higher on a scale of 4.0 in all undergraduate degree major courses attempted. Individuals not meeting this requirement but who have a strong professional background and excellent references may be admitted;
3. Three (3) letters of recommendation concerning the applicant's previous academic and professional work;
4. International applicants must submit English proficiency scores in accordance with UAB Graduate School requirement. Click here for details;
5. Verification of registration by examination as a Professional Engineer (PE) will satisfy criterion 2.

Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering Program Requirements

Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering

This is a joint program with the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).  A typical student entering the program will already have an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from a program accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. Students with outstanding records in related fields or from a non-accredited engineering program will be considered for admission on conditional standing and must remedy deficiencies in their preparation after the start of their academic program. 

The program requires 48 credit hours of coursework beyond the baccalaureate level or 24 credit hours of coursework beyond the master's degree, plus a minimum of 24 credit hours of dissertation research (CE 799).

A minimum of 6 credit hours must be taken from the UAH campus and may be taken through the lntercampus Interactive Telecommunications System (llTS) at UAB, Distance Learning (DL) courses from UAH, or web-based Instruction from UAH.

Doctoral students are also required to successfully complete GRD 717 Principles of Scientific Integrity prior to admission to candidacy.

A Graduate Study Committee must be established by the doctoral student and must include a minimum of five graduate faculty members, at least one of which must be from UAH. A comprehensive examination is required of all doctoral candidates. This examination is conducted on the resident campus by the Graduate Study Committee after all coursework is successfully completed. The examination has both written and oral components. During the oral portion of the examination, the student also presents the dissertation proposal. The comprehensive examination may only be taken twice.

When the graduate student successfully passes the comprehensive examination, including the dissertation proposal, the student may apply to enter candidacy. Once a doctoral candidate, the student must complete a minimum of 24 graduate hours of dissertation research (CE 799) over the course of at least two semesters. Prior to admission of candidacy, the graduate can take research hours in the form of non-dissertation hours (CE 798); these non-dissertation research hours cannot be converted from non-dissertation research credits into dissertation research credits.

After successful completion of 24 hours of dissertation research, the graduate student must complete the dissertation for review by the Graduate Study Committee. The doctoral candidate must present an oral public defense of the dissertation. When the graduate student successfully defends the dissertation, the student then has ten working days to complete revisions and submit the approved document to the Graduate School.

All required coursework must be selected from the list below.

Requirements		Hours
CE 712	Theory of Elasticity	3
CE 715	Theory of Elastic Stability	3
CE 717	Theory of Plates and Shells	3
CE 721	Transportation Engineering Seminar	1
CE 722	Traffic Flow Theory	3
CE 723	Non-Motorized Transportation Design and Planning	3
CE 724	Simulation Models for Transportation Applications	3
CE 725	Intelligent Transportation Systems	3
CE 731	Environmental Law	3
CE 732	Industrial Waste and Wastewater Treatment	3
CE 736	Stormwater Pollution Management	3
CE 738	Water and Wastewater Chemistry	3
CE 739	Sediment Sources and Controls	3
CE 740	Wastewater Treatment Engineering	3
CE 749	Engineering Liability	3
CE 750	Advanced Structural Steel	3
CE 755	Advanced Reinforced Concrete	3
CE 758	Engineering Management	3
CE 763	Finite Element Methods	3
CE 781	Environmental Chemistry	3
CE 782	Water Treatment Engineering	3
CE 783	Water and Wastewater Treatment Processes Lab	3
CE 786	Engineering Hydrogeology	3
CE 787	Stormwater Detention Pond Design	3
CE 790	Special Topics in (Area) 1	1-3
CE 791	Individual Studies (In Area) 1	1-4
Other Requirements
GRD 717	Principles of Scientific Integrity	3
Dissertation Research 2		24
CE 799	Dissertation Research
PhD Students are required to complete two 3-credit hour courses offered from UAH and may be taken through IITS, at UAB, UAH Distance Learning, or web-based instruction from UAH		6
UAB PhD Students can also take CE 590 and CE 690 courses (see Footnote 1)

1	Must have Program Director approval prior to registration
2	Minimum of 24 hours of Dissertation Research taken over at least two semesters