BIOLOGY,
DIVISION OF MEDICAL SCIENCES

Satisfactory Progress

Until attainment of the PhD degree, satisfactory progress is required for Division of Medical Sciences (DMS) students to continue enrollment in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Each program in the Division of Medical Sciences determines progress by considering the following: performance in courses; satisfactory performance on the preliminary examination; demonstration of adequate research ability and/or level of improvement; acceptable ethical conduct; participation in other scholarly activities of the student’s program; and required activities of the Division of Medical Sciences.

The First Two Years

First-Year Advisors

Each first-year student is assigned a faculty advisor or committee to assist in course selection. Sometimes the advisor serves as the academic advisor to all first-year students in that program. This process continues until each student has an individual dissertation advisory committee (DAC) in place.

Courses and Grades

The particular courses a student is required to take vary among programs. In addition to each program’s Core curriculum, some programs require that students take additional courses to ensure a broad background in basic science. GSAS states that the minimum standard for satisfactory work in the Graduate School is a B average in each academic year.

Rotations

Laboratory rotations are required to ensure some breadth of research experience and exposure to opportunities in the Division of Medical Sciences and to give the student a trial period before making a commitment for dissertation work. Students are expected to have completed satisfactory rotations in at least two labs prior to full-time research; many students complete three rotations, which is strongly recommended. Any student who begins his or her dissertation work in a new lab (one in which they have not done a rotation) must consider the first three months as a rotation. This allows for evaluation by both the student and the mentor.

The Conduct of Science

Medical Sciences 300, The Conduct of Science, is a discussion forum on ethics and the proper conduct of science. It is designed to provide discussion among new and continuing students and faculty on matters of responsible scientific practice and ethics. All students in the Division of Medical Sciences must register to take this course when it is offered either in their first or second year.

Laboratory and Radiation Safety Courses

All incoming DMS graduate students are required to take the Harvard University Laboratory and Radiation Safety Courses (scheduled during orientation) before beginning any type of lab work at Harvard. Students who have already completed these Harvard course will not be required to repeat them. All students entering a dissertation lab not located at HMS must report to their department administrator’s office at that institution for additional information on training. In addition, DMS students who intend to do rotations or dissertation work at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) must take the MGH laboratory and radiation courses.

Credit for Work Done Elsewhere

The programs may excuse a student from some of the program course requirements in consideration of courses taken elsewhere. Only courses taken after the bachelor’s degree may be given official GSAS credit toward the PhD degree. Courses for official GSAS credit cannot appear on the student’s undergraduate transcript. The maximum allowable credit for courses taken elsewhere is eight half-courses.

Advising

Advising of students is multi-layered, distributed among advisors, committees, program heads, program administrators, DMS, and GSAS. The division provides all students with a set of academic guidelines that describes advising. This varies in specific form for the individual programs in DMS. In general, first- and second-year students are monitored by academic advisors or academic advisory committees. After a student selects a dissertation laboratory, a dissertation advisory committee is formed. In parallel with the dissertation advisor, it monitors the student’s progress, offers assistance, and determines when the student can write and defend the dissertation.

Master of Arts (AM)

The programs in the Division of Medical Sciences offer PhD training and do not accept candidates for a master’s degree. Only under exceptional circumstances does the faculty award a master’s degree. Eligibility is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Teaching

DMS encourages students to gain meaningful teaching experience as part of their graduate training. While DMS does not have its own teaching requirement, several individual programs include a term of teaching among the academic requirements. Students who have met their program’s teaching requirement may undertake additional teaching or tutoring responsibilities, but only with permission of their dissertation research advisor and the Division of Medical Sciences. Applications to teach in a course must be submitted to the Division of Medical Sciences for approval. Students should not teach more than one quarter or one section of time in any given semester.

If students plan to do any teaching during a semester the student must list “Time-T” on his/her study card.  Example, if a student plans to teach one-quarter of his/her time, he/she must sign up for one “Time-T” on his/her study card, etc. The student’s dissertation advisor and program academic advisor or program head must sign the study card.

Preliminary Examinations

Each student is required to pass a preliminary examination administered by the student’s program. Each student should follow his or her program’s preliminary examination procedures. This examination is given at the end of the first year or in the second year. The preliminary examination varies somewhat from program to program. The common format consists of a written proposal that is defended orally. Continued enrollment for any student who has not attained a clear pass after a second examination, if one had been approved, will be considered and determined by a committee of faculty from the student’s program and from the director of graduate studies of the Division of Medical Sciences. A student is not allowed to register for the fourth year if she or he has not passed the preliminary examination.

Dissertation Selecting a Dissertation Advisor

Selection of a dissertation advisor is a multi-step process: Before a student may officially begin dissertation work in a laboratory, his or her selection of a dissertation advisor must be approved by the director of graduate studies for DMS. When a student decides on a dissertation advisor he or she initiates this process by obtaining a Dissertation Advisor Declaration form (DAD) available from each program administrator.

Dissertation Advisory Committees (DAC)

An important policy of the Division of Medical Sciences is that each graduate student establish a dissertation advisory committee (DAC) to provide timely and considered advising. The DAC helps set logical goals for the completion of the dissertation and monitors progress toward completion of degree requirements.

This method of dissertation advising works well—but only if the DAC meets and reports on a regular basis. Specific and stringent guidelines ensure that every student obtains maximal benefit from this system. Many of these guidelines are set forth in the Division of Medical Sciences Timeline to Degree.

The student’s DAC should be formed in consultation with the student and the student’s dissertation advisor. The committee should have three members not including the advisor. The dissertation advisor may be an ex officio member. Each student bears primary responsibility for setting up the DAC and ensuring that it meets in a timely fashion. The student should meet with his or her committee as soon as possible after the preliminary examination, but in all cases by the end of graduate year three and each twelve months thereafter. Beginning with the fourth graduate year, students will be allowed to register for the upcoming year(s) only if their DAC has met and filed a formal report within the past twelve months.

The DAC will meet as a group and report annually. Beginning no later than the fifth year, the DAC will ask if the research project is heading toward a plausible dissertation. The DAC may decide to meet more than one time a year for students in their fifth year and above, or in special circumstances.

The chair of the DAC is responsible for the preparation of the report, which should be signed by all committee members immediately upon conclusion of the meeting. The chair will submit the report to the program administrator, who distributes copies to the student, to the program advisory committee, and to the office of the Division of Medical Sciences. Immediate submission of the DAC report is important, not only so potential problems can be remedied quickly, but so the student’s registration status is not jeopardized.

Preparation for the Dissertation Defense

The FAS Registrar specifies deadlines by which the dissertation must be submitted and the dissertation examination passed to receive the PhD diploma in November, March, or May of each academic year. A dissertation information packet is available in the division office specifying the steps to be taken when the student is ready to apply for the PhD degree and the various forms that need to be submitted. The information packet will be thoroughly reviewed with the student by a member of the division staff. The first step is completion of two forms: the “application for degree” form and the “program approval” form. The deadline for submitting these forms can be more than three months before the student expects to receive the degree.

Students must have a DAC report on file in the Division of Medical Sciences office stating that the student may begin writing the dissertation prior to processing dissertation defense paperwork.

The dissertation must show original treatment of a fitting subject, contain a scholarly review of the pertinent literature, give evidence of independent research, and be clearly, logically, and carefully written. Students are expected to give a public seminar on their dissertation research.

Attributions to Dissertation

The PhD dissertation is expected to contain a substantial amount of independent re-search work of publishable quality. In addition to chapters of research, each dissertation must contain introduction and conclusion chapters which present the themes of the dissertation and summarize the accomplishments. In some cases the student has done all of the work in the dissertation; more often portions of the dissertation result from collaborative research. In all dissertations containing collaborative results, the dissertation should indicate concisely who contributed the work.

It is permissible for more than one student to include work from the same collaboration or publication as long as the required attributions are clear, justified, and complete.

Individual chapters can be that of published articles as long as there are comprehensive Introduction and Conclusion chapters written by the student. Use of actual reprints as a chapter is not permissible. A Word document of the published article must be used in place of a reprint as pages in the dissertation must be consecutively numbered. Any dissertation that varies significantly from the Graduate School guidelines or is not neat and readable is subject to required stylistic revision before acceptance by the University. (See the Form of the PhD Dissertation handout, available through the DMS office or online.)

Examiners

The student and the student’s dissertation advisor must select at least four examining committee members: an examination chair, usually a member of the DAC, and three examiners. If an alternate examiner is requested, then the alternate must receive a copy of the dissertation and be available on the date of the defense.

The director of graduate studies of the Division of Medical Sciences and the head or designated faculty member of the candidate’s program will approve the members from a list submitted by the candidate and his or her advisor (“Proposed Dissertation Examiners” form). All proposed examiners must be the rank of assistant professor or higher. At least one member of the examination committee and the chair of the examination must be faculty from the Division of Medical Sciences; the dissertation advisor is not eligible to be an examiner or the chair, but usually attends the examination ex officio. To broaden the examination and enhance its significance, one member of the examination committee must be from outside Harvard University. Candidates are required to have one, but not more than one, member of the DAC become a member of the Examination Committee. The Examination Committee chair, who in many cases is the chair of the DAC, does not function as a voting examiner but may participate in the questioning of the candidate.

Past collaborators and co-authors are usually not appropriate to be examiners. It is the student’s responsibility to indicate any possible relationship of this kind. Faculty members who have collaborated with the student or the student’s advisor on the student’s area of research within the past five years may not serve on the exam committee. Faculty with whom the student has done a regular laboratory rotation in the process of selecting the dissertation laboratory are eligible if there are no other collaborations. Students may petition DMS to approve examiners whose collaboration with the student or advisor was not directly related to the dissertation research.

DMS Vacation Policy

Graduate study in the Division of Medical Sciences is considered a full-time endeavor. Students are entitled to official student holidays and vacation days observed by the University or the institutions at which their dissertation laboratories are located. Graduate study is a year-round activity that continues between terms and throughout the summer months. Students planning to be away at times other than official vacations may do so only with the approval of their program head, designated program advisor, or their dissertation advisor if they are in a dissertation research laboratory.
For more extensive information about the Division of Medical Sciences requirements, students should consult the Division of Medical Sciences and their program offices.