Biomedical Engineering
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Total Credits
Program Graduation Requirements
Students may not count more than 6 credit hours of nonmatriculated graduate work toward any graduate degree without prior approval. Candidates for graduate degrees are required to maintain a 3.0 or higher GPA with no grade below B- accepted for credit toward degrees. For more detailed information, see the Graduate Information section of this catalog.
All M.S. students form a supervisory committee consisting of at least three University of Utah faculty members. The chair of the committee must have a faculty appointment in the Department of Bioengineering and at least two of the committee members must be tenure-track members of the Bioengineering faculty. The advisor and committee must be approved by the Bioengineering Associate Chair for Graduate Studies.
M.S./Thesis Option: A minimum of 21 hours of course work and 9 hours in research is required. A publicly defended MS Thesis is required. The thesis-option M.S. requires 9 credit hours of thesis research (BIOEN 6970) and submission of a Master of Science Thesis to the Graduate School in the required format. MS students defend their thesis research in a public forum. The public defense is followed by an oral comprehensive examination administered by the thesis committee. Copies of the thesis must be given to the advisor, each member of the supervisory committee and to the bioengineering graduate program coordinator at least two weeks prior to the defense. The committee can pass the candidate, pass the candidate contingent upon the candidate’s successfully responding to issues raised at the defense, or fail the candidate. M.S. candidates are given two opportunities to pass the defense and to pass the oral comprehensive exam.
M.S./Course Option: 30 hours of course work and oral exam or passed PhD written qualifying exam. The course-option M.S. requires completion of at least 9 credit hours of advanced courses within a Bioengineering track specialization (in lieu of a thesis). To demonstrate depth of knowledge within the field, the course-option M.S. also requires students to pass an oral exam administered by the M.S. supervisory committee or the written portion of the Ph.D. qualifying examination. For the course-option M.S., the chair of the supervisory committee is the Bioengineering track specialization advisor and the other two committee members are tenure-track Bioengineering faculty members.
Students must pass a written qualifying examination and thesis proposal to become Ph.D. candidates.
The core curriculum is required for students entering the graduate program in Fall Semester with an undergraduate degree in a physical science or a traditional engineering discipline and who have not had training in the life sciences and/or biomedical engineering. Students who have taken substantially similar courses as undergraduates, students with BS degrees in Biomedical Engineering for example, must select approved alternate courses to fulfill these requirements. Substitute courses must be chosen with the guidance and approval of the departmental track advisor. The plan of study must ultimately be approved by the research supervisory committee and the director of graduate studies.