The following information is provided to assist Chemistry graduate students as they prepare their theses. If graduate students have any questions that are not answered by this guide, they should email the Chemistry Education Office (questions about department policies) or MIT Libraries (for questions about thesis formatting, etc.)
Degree candidates must fill out the Degree Application via WebSIS at the start of the term. Important dates and deadlines (including late fees) for the upcoming academic year are listed below. It is strongly advised that degree candidates apply for the degree list even if there is uncertainty about completing the thesis defense and submission by the deadline, as there are no penalties for being removed from the degree list.
Students must successfully complete the thesis defense before submitting their final, signed thesis.
**Please note that the Specifications for Thesis Preparation were updated in November 2022. Please make sure you use these new guidelines.**
Important Dates & Deadlines
September 2024 Degree List
- Degree Application Deadline: June 14, 2024 ($50 late fee if submitted after this date, $85 late fee if submitted after July 21, 2024)
- Thesis Title Deadline:July 19, 2024 ($85 late fee if submitted after this date. If your thesis title is not finalized by this date, please enter your current working title and the final title can be updated later)
- Thesis Submission Deadline: August 16, 2024
- Last day of work in the lab: on or before August 31, 2024. If you plan to end your RA appointment earlier than August 31st, please contact Jennifer to review your timeline.
- Your degree will officially be conferred by MIT on September 18, 2024
- Information about the MIT Health Plan and graduation will be available online here.
February 2025 Degree List
- Degree Application Deadline: September 6, 2024 ($50 late fee if submitted after this date, $85 late fee if submitted after December 13, 2024)
- Thesis Title Deadline: December 13, 2024 ($85 late fee if submitted after this date. If your thesis title is not finalized by this date, please enter your current working title and the final title can be updated later)
- Thesis Submission Deadline: January 17, 2025
- Last day of work in the lab: on or before January 15, 2025. If you plan to end your RA appointment earlier than January 15th, please contact Jennifer to review your timeline.
- Your degree will officially be conferred by MIT on February 19, 2025
- Information about the MIT Health Plan and graduation will be available online here.
May 2025 Degree List
- Degree Application Deadline:February 7, 2025 ($50 late fee if submitted after this date, $85 late fee if submitted after April 11, 2025)
- Thesis Title Deadline: April 11, 2025 ($85 late fee if submitted after this date. If your thesis title is not finalized by this date, please enter your current working title and the final title can be updated later)
- Thesis Submission Deadline: May 9, 2025
- Last day of work in the lab: on or before May 28, 2025. If you plan to end your RA appointment earlier than May 28th, please contact Jennifer to review your timeline.
- Your degree will officially be conferred by MIT on May 29, 2025
- Information about the MIT Health Plan and graduation will be available online here.
Scheduling your Thesis Defense
All PhD candidates must have a Thesis Defense. As soon as your defense is finalized, please email the Chemistry Education Office with the date, time, location, and thesis title. Thesis defenses are strongly encouraged to be in-person. If there are questions or concerns about an in-person defense, please reach out to Jennifer Weisman. When thesis defenses are on campus, we recommend reserving a room once the defense date is finalized, student can reserve department rooms through the online scheduling system or request a classroom via this form.
Degree candidates should provide their advisor with a copy of the thesis at least two weeks before the defense and provide their thesis committee chair and member with a copy at least one week before the defense. However, degree candidates should talk with their advisor, committee chair, and committee member to find out if they need the thesis further in advance or if there are preferred formats. Degree candidates should allow time in between their thesis defense and the submission deadline to make edits and submit the final copies.
Please note that most receiving a PhD degree are required to present a seminar as part of the thesis defense. This seminar is open to the department. The degree candidate is responsible for providing the Chemistry Education Office with information about their thesis defense at least two weeks ahead of time. Following the seminar, the candidate will meet privately with the thesis committee.
Thesis Formatting
The Institute has very specific requirements for thesis preparation, which were updated in November 2022. Specifications for Thesis Preparation is available on the library’s website and should be read very carefully. The MIT Thesis FAQ may answer additional questions and a helpful checklist is also provided. The specifications also include information about copyright and use of previously published material in a thesis. Do not rely on any templates or prior theses from your research group – they may not reflect the most current guidelines. We have highlighted some especially important points below.
Pagination
The title page is always considered to be page 1, and every page must be included in the count regardless of whether a number is included on a page. The entire thesis (including title page, prefatory material, illustrations, and all text and appendices) must be paginated in one consecutive numbering sequence.
Font & Spacing
While not required, it is suggested that you use a sans serif font, as those tend to be more easily readable.
The text of the thesis may be single- double- or one-and-a-half-spaced. The abstract, biography, notes, bibliography, and acknowledgment should be single-spaced.
Title Page & Committee Signature Page
There are strict guidelines for the
formatting of the title page and some especially important components are listed below.
- The title page of the first copy will be digitally signed by the author, advisor, and Professor Adam Willard. The title page should contain the title, name of the author, previous degrees, the degree(s) to be awarded at MIT, the date the degree(s) will be conferred (May, September, or February only), copyright notice, and appropriate names and signatures. Degrees are awarded in Chemistry, regardless of your specific research area. Regardless of when you defend or submit your thesis, the date of degree conferral must be May/June, September, or February.
- As noted above, the title page will be signed by you, your advisor, and Professor Willard. You do not need to have Professor Willard digitally sign the thesis before you submit it, we will arrange to have him sign it. If your advisor has a title (ex., Firmenich Professor of Chemistry) it should also be included under their name. If you are not sure if they have a title, you can consult the Faculty Directory. Professor Willard should have the following listed under his name, on two separate lines: Professor of Chemistry; Graduate Officer
- Each student should place the appropriate copyright notice on the thesis title page. Copyright notice consists of four elements: the symbol “c” with a circle around it © and/or the word “copyright”; the year of publication (the year in which the degree is to be awarded); the name of the copyright owner; the words “All rights reserved” or your chosen Creative Commons license. All theses should have the following legend statement exactly: The author hereby grants to MIT a nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to exercise any and all rights under copyright, including to reproduce, preserve, distribute and publicly display copies of the thesis, or release the thesis under an open-access license. Please carefully review the copyright information to determine the appropriate copyright ownership.
- The date under Signature of Author should be the date the final thesis is signed and submitted to the department.
- The title page is always considered to be page 1, and every page must be included in the count regardless of whether a number would be physically printed on a page. We recommend that you do not include the page number on the title page.
- There is also a signature page that will be digitally signed by your entire thesis committee. Your advisor will digitally sign your thesis twice, on the title page and signature page. The signature page is right after the title page.
- More details about digital signatures are provided below.
Table of Contents
The Table of Contents should include all parts of the thesis. This includes the title page, abstract, and anything else included in the thesis such as acknowledgements or a list of figures.
Abstract
Each thesis must include an abstract of generally no more than 500 words single-spaced. The abstract should be thought of as a brief descriptive summary, not a lengthy introduction to the thesis. The abstract should immediately follow the title page. Please see the
Specifications for Thesis Preparation for more details.
Final Thesis Submission
General Submission Process
Please carefully review the details below, including the file naming format. There are two steps to the final submissions process:
1. Submit the following documents to the Department of Chemistry:
- An electronic copy of your thesis in PDF/A-1 format (with no signatures)
- A PDF of the digitally signed title page and committee signature page (using DocuSign to obtain signatures)
Please send an email to your advisor, Jennifer Weisman, and Rebecca Drake, which includes the 2 PDFs above and the following text:
“Dear Professor/Dr X: Attached is the final version of my thesis. Please use reply-all to this message to indicate your acceptance of my thesis document and your recommendation for certification by my department.”
**Note: if your thesis document is too large to send via email, your email can include a link to access the document via Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.**
2. Submit your thesis information to MIT Libraries here. Choose to opt-in or opt-out of ProQuest license and publication. Include the same copyright and license information that is on your thesis title page. Note: this does not involve submitting your actual thesis.
Details for Thesis Submission Process
- After the defense, the student and thesis committee reach agreement on the final thesis document.
- Students should follow the format specifications as stated in the Specifications for Thesis Preparation. Do not print or physically sign pages.
- Students will have the thesis signed electronically through DocuSign. This process is described in detail in the section below.
- The title page is always considered to be page 1, and every page must be included in the count regardless of whether a number is physically printed on a page. The entire thesis (including title page, prefatory material, illustrations, and all text and appendices) must be paginated in one consecutive numbering sequence. Your committee signature page should be page 2. Please see the Sample Title Page and committee signature page for reference.
- You will still include the title page and committee signature page in the full thesis PDF, they just won’t have any signatures.
- The digitally signed title page and committee signature pages should be in one PDF, separate from the thesis document. This avoids a DocuSign tag at the top of each page of the full thesis. Please use the following naming convention: authorLastName-kerb-degree-dept-year-sig.pdf (ex., montgomery-mssimon-phd-chemistry-2021-sig.pdf).
- Students should save their final thesis document as a PDF using the following file naming convention: authorLastName-kerb-degree-dept-year-thesis.pdf (ex., montgomery-mssimon-phd-chemistry-2021-thesis.pdf).
- Students should not deposit the PDF of their thesis via the Libraries Library’s voluntary submission portal.
- Please send an email to your advisor, Jennifer, and William which includes the final thesis document and file with the digitally signed title/committee signature pages with the following text:
“Dear Professor/Dr X: Attached is the final version of my thesis. Please use reply-all to this message to indicate your acceptance of my thesis document and your recommendation for certification by my department.”
Please also complete the MIT Doctoral Student Exit Survey and your Laboratory Safety Clearance Form.
Digital Signatures
Please see here for a full guide (with screenshots) to using DocuSign to obtain digital signatures
Required Signatures:
These should be everyone’s uploaded digital signatures in their own handwriting, not one of the pre-formatted signatures created by DocuSign.
- Your signature on the thesis title page
- Your advisor’s signature on both the title page and committee signature page
- Your thesis committee chair’s and member’s signatures on the committee signature page
- You do not need to have Adam Willard sign your title page, the Chemistry Education Office will take care of that
- The DocuSign title page and committee signature pages should be a separate document from the thesis document to avoid creating a DocuSign tag at the top of each page. You will be submitting 2 documents:
- Full thesis with no signatures (including unsigned title page and thesis committee signature page)
- Title page and committee signature page with signatures via DocuSign
Accessing DocuSign
MIT users should access DocuSign using a VPN. DocuSign is Touchstone-enabled. You will be prompted to enter your email and you will then be able to log in using an MIT personal certificate or kerberos username and password. MIT’s comprehensive guide to DocuSign is available online here. If you run into any issues, please let Jennifer know.
Thesis Hold Requests
Details about requesting a thesis hold are available here and the requests are made to different offices based on the type of request.
Written notification of patent holds and other restrictions must reach the Institute Archives before the thesis in question is received, as under normal circumstances, all theses are open and available for public inspection once they have been received by the Institute Archives.
Graduate Student Exit Interviews
In order to best serve the educational, scientific, and social needs of graduate students in the Chemistry Department, it is critically important that Departmental leadership be appropriately informed of issues of importance to graduate students, ideally on an ongoing basis. Graduate student exit interviews provide information that alert the Department to acute issues that affect graduate students and provide data for longitudinal assessments of graduate student experience within the program.Graduate exit interviews are administered to all graduate students departing the Chemistry Department. The exit interview applies equally to graduate students departing with completed degrees (Ph.D. and M.S.) and without degrees.
- Graduating students will be sent a list of interview questions by the Chemistry Education Office when the student joins the degree list. Instructions about scheduling a time for the in-person or virtual discussion will be included with other informational correspondence from the Chemistry Education Office regarding degree completion. Graduating students will perform their exit interview after the thesis defense so as to avoid making the interview an additional burden.
- For students departing the program without a degree, the interview questions and instructions for scheduling an in-person discussion will be sent by the Chemistry Education Office at the point in time that a date for termination of their appointment in Chemistry is determined.
- For the majority of departing students, this interview coincides with the end of the semester, but a rolling schedule of surveys is anticipated.
Postdoctoral/Research Specialist Appointments
If you plan to transition to a postdoctoral/research specialist appointment within the Department of Chemistry at MIT, please contact Jennifer Weisman and Chemistry HR as soon as possible. Your final signed thesis must be submitted before a postdoc appointment can start. If you are an international student, it is extremely important that you start this process early to allow sufficient timing for visa processing. In addition to talking with Jennifer and HR, please consult with the International Students Office.
