Academics | PhD Program

Context: The Engineering Systems Division (ESD) at MIT is helping to pioneer Engineering Systems as a new field of study – designed to transform engineering education and practice.

Mission: The ESD doctoral research programs conduct original and generalizable scholarship on complex engineered systems in order to advance theory, policy, or practice.

The main objective of the ESD PhD program is to prepare colleagues who can seed engineering schools with the integrative ideas of engineering systems. Our alumni whether working in academia, government, the private sector, or public service have found the rigorous and individualized program to provide the foundation for challenging careers.

The ESD PhD program is residential. Doctoral students share courses and seminars as a means to establish a common intellectual basis and collegial community. Students must satisfy a distributional requirement, prepare a program of in-depth courses, and pass the Doctoral Exams. Students work with the faculty and committees to focus their preparation and research into the areas that are most productive for them, leading to a dissertation advancing the field of Engineering Systems.

Each student’s doctoral program requires research capabilities at the forefront of the field of engineering systems. These represent a kind of education distinct from, although not incompatible with, the professional Master’s degrees sponsored by or associated with ESD (LGO, MLOG, TPP, and SDM). Thus doctoral students will take different, more in-depth subjects than those generally taken by students in the professional Master’s programs.

Learn More:

• Research Videos: Learn about the cutting-edge research from our doctoral student researchers on MIT TechTV.
• FAQs About the Doctoral Program
• Admission to the PhD Program
• FAQs About Examinations
• FAQs For Current Students
• PhD Student Bios
• PhD Alumni Bios
• Completed Doctoral Dissertations