Ph.D. Program Objectives

The doctoral program is designed to prepare scholars, teachers, and leaders for academia and industry in contemporary and emerging engineering fields. Its primary component is independent, directed research leading towards a dissertation. The Ph.D. degree can be achieved with a concentration in any of the engineering programs offered in the College of Engineering. The program is designed to encourage intellectual depth within the area or discipline of study while also providing enough flexibility to allow for breadth across disciplinary lines when useful for multi-disciplinary research topics. The Villanova University Engineering Ph.D. program is one of the few programs in the country that will allow the degree to be pursued on a part-time basis by working professionals, with many of the relevant courses available through our state of the art on-line Distance Education program.