Natural Resources and Environmental Management, PhD

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The PhD degree in NREM is awarded only to students with outstanding scholarly achievement. Applicants for the PhD program with academic records that do not match NREM core requirements will be expected to incorporate these into their PhD program. To meet the integrative, multi-disciplinary intent of this program, a set of graduate level courses (Primary PhD Core) will be required of every student regardless of his or her selected specialization area. In addition, a set of electives will be required. These electives are meant to provide background in research methods and depth in the student’s specialization area. The remaining degree requirements will be met by dissertation credits (NREM 800 ). All PhD students must pass a written and oral comprehensive examination (described below) before being advanced to candidacy. The student’s dissertation committee is responsible for designing and administering the comprehensive examination.

Primary PhD Core (5 credits)

NREM 600 - Foundations of Natural Resource and Environmental Management and Policy Credits: 4
NREM 701 - Research Seminar Credits: 1

Electives (12 credits)

Two analytic courses that focuses on research design, research evaluation, data collection, and/or data analysis (600-level or above, 6)
Two graduate courses for specialization (600-level or above, 6)

Dissertation (1 credit)

NREM 800 - Dissertation Research Credits: V

Comprehensive Examination

The comprehensive exam consists of both a written and an oral part, followed by a defense of the dissertation proposal. The final outcome of the comprehensive examination is the acceptance of the student to the PhD candidacy in NREM. Based on this examination, the student’s committee will determine if the student: (1) is ready, (2) needs to take more courses to remediate deficiencies in their training, or (3) that the student is not fit for the NREM PhD program. In the process of administering the examination, the committee will test the rigor of the student’s training as: (1) a scientist in general (that the student can follow the scientific method and procedure to address a research problem and also has the analytical skills to conduct research), (2) a scientist in NREM (has in-depth knowledge of what makes their unique compared to other graduates of UH that might have similar interests; in other words, a NREM student focusing on hydrology should not only be trained to deal with a hydrology problem but also should be able to address the natural resources and environmental management implications of that problem as compared to a hydrology graduate from Civil and Environmental Engineering, Geology and Geophysics, or Geography and Environment), and (3) a scientist in their specialty area (for example, a NREM PhD student with a specialty in hydrology should have more in-depth expertise in hydrology than other NREM PhD students working in other specialty areas).

Based on this understanding, the comprehensive examination questions can cover: (1) their specialty (i.e., hydrology, forest ecology and management), (2) general topics related to NREM (i.e., core courses, background knowledge), (3) knowledge of general research methods (i.e., statistics, analysis methods, etc.), and (4) the proposed dissertation research.