Timing

In order to schedule a defense, the student must have the approval of the advisor and committee. Therefore, a pre-defense committee meeting is recommended, usually ~6 months before the target date.

At least four members of your committee must attend your defense, including your advisor, the Graduate School Representitive, and at least one additional graduate faculty member. It can be very difficult to find a day and time that works for all or most of your committee as well as find a suitable location. It's best to start thinking about this sooner rather than later. Brian can help you find a location for your defense (and you can also check Foege Auditorium availability here). If your defense will be virtual or hybrid, please see the graduate school's policies for virtual exams.

Scheduling Considerations

If you plan to schedule your defense toward the end of the quarter, you need to defend and submit a completed version of your thesis to the graduate school by the last day of finals week that quarter in order to graduate that quarter. It is theoretically possible to schedule your defense the last day of the quarter, assuming your committee will not ask for any changes afterward, but this would be very stressful. Building in at least a week (more is better) will make life much easier.

Reading Committee

At this point you should choose a Reading Committee, comprised of your advisor and two other members (your advisor will be the reading committee chair). Send their names to Brian Giebel, who will set this up with the Graduate School. There is no hard deadline for this, but this needs to be done before you apply online to defend.

Submitting Your Draft Dissertation to Your Reading Committee

While not required, it is a good idea to first submit your draft dissertation to your advisor. Three weeks before the defense, you must submit a draft dissertation to your reading committee. Failure to submit this draft is grounds for the committee canceling the defense. The reading committee should read the dissertation and provide comments to the student on the day of the defense.

Reading committee approval is now done online. All members of a Supervisory Committee will be able to log into the committee view section. Members who log in using their UW NetID will see the option to approve the dissertation after the student’s final exam has been scheduled. The graduate school office has provided an FAQ document for this.

Final Quarter Registration

You may petition the Graduate School to enroll in only 2 credits your final quarter without this affecting your tuition waiver, insurance, or payroll appointment. This will save your dissertation advisor some grant funding. Please note that there may be reasons you should stay enrolled full time (e.g. if you are an international student required to be enrolled fulltime, for student loan deferral purposes, etc).

Registration as a graduate student is required the quarter the dissertation is defended. However, if you successfully defend but are not able to submit your thesis until the following quarter, you can pay the Graduate Degree Registration Waiver of $250 rather than being required to register for the following quarter, as was previously the case. Please note that this is a very limited option available only for the two weeks immediately following the end of the quarter - essentially, you are buying an extra two weeks to wrap up your dissertation. Please also be aware that if you use this option, you will not officially be awarded your degree until the end of that quarter. For example: Suppose you defend at the end of Spring Quarter, but can't submit your thesis by the end of that quarter and so have to use the registration waiver ($250) option to buy two extra weeks. You then will not officially graduate until the end of Summer Quarter.

An important payroll consideration is that you must be on payroll for at least 5 of the 6 pay periods in a given quarter in order for your tuition waiver to remain in place. For example, suppose you defend your dissertation in mid-November. Your grad student appointment must go through at least 5 of the 6 pay periods -- in this case, November 30 -- in order for your tuition waiver to remain in place. If this is not possible, please contact Brian to discuss options.

Scheduling Your Defense with the Graduate School

Once you have determined a time that works for everyone, and once your committee has agreed that you are ready to defend, submit this request online via the Graduate School's My Grad Program: Student View website. There is no hard deadline for this, but you would do well to do this at least three weeks before you plan to defend. This will allow a bit of time to clear up any unforeseen problems. Send Brian Giebel an email ( bgiebel [ a t ] uw.edu ) to let him know you've submitted your request, so that he may go into the online system and provide departmental approval. If you have completed requirements for a specific track or certificate - i.e. one of the Data Science tracks or the CMB certificate - please be sure to let Brian know, if you haven't previously done so, so that this may be added to your record.

Defense Paperwork / Conveying the Result

Brian will provide the exam warrant, which your committee members will need to sign and return after your exam. Brian will then go into the online system to enter the result. The graduate school will formally award your degree in the week or so following the end of the quarter.  If you need proof of having completed degree requirements earlier, you can request a letter of certification from them, once you have submitted your dissertation and your reading committee has approved.

Submitting Your Dissertation

The Graduate School no longer requires that you submit a hard copy of your dissertation. Submission is now electronic. Please see their website for instructions and more information.You may also find the ProQuest frequently asked questions page helpful. Please be sure you receive confirmation that you've successfully submitted your dissertation. If you don't receive this confirmation, you should contact the graduate school office to make sure your dissertation has been submitted.

The department will pay for 3 copies of your thesis to be bound: one for you, one for your mentor, and one for the departmental archives. You can send Brian a PDF to get this done.

Post-graduation plans

And finally, please discuss your post-graduation plans with your mentor and decide ahead of time whether you will leave the UW immediately after you graduate, or whether you'll stay on in your mentor's lab for a while. This is worth repeating: setting a temporary position requires a lot of time and hoop jumping, so please decide on this before you defend and discuss with the department's HR Manager (Serena Newhall, Foege S-250) and postdoctoral staff (Josh Malamy, Foege S-350), if you go the postdoc route. Please note that we are no longer able to set up short-term postdoctoral appointments - these must be for a minimum of one year. If you plan to stay on for a shorter time, we would need to set up a research scientist position for you.

In any case, regardless of whether you stay on as a postdoc or not, you should check in with Brian and with HR Manager Serena Newhall so that your payroll distribution can be updated as needed. You'll also want to be sure to update your mailing address in Workday so that tax forms reach you. Please also send your non-UW email address to Brian so that you may be added to the GS Alumni email list. Information on your UW netID and email forwarding is available on the UW IT website.

UW services such as Gmail and Office 365 will go away automatically by the second pay period after separation if unaddressed, but a person from your lab (typically the lab manager) can provision continuing access for these services. For questions regarding GS IT services, please contact the GS IT group directly.

You will have GAIP insurance coverage through the end of the month in which your payroll appointment ends. For example, if you graduate Autumn Quarter, and have a payroll appointment through December 15, you will have insurance coverage through December 31. An exception to this rule is that if you are on payroll for Autumn, Winter, and Spring Quarters, you will have insurance coverage through Summer Quarter as well (in payroll terms, this will be through September 30), regardless of whether or not you are on payroll during Summer Quarter. If you need to pay for continued coverage beyond the quarter in which you graduate, please contact the UW Benefits Office for further information.