The doctoral program leads to a PhD in Computer Science. Students admitted into the program typically have a master's degree in computer science or a closely related discipline. Students with a B.S. degree and a strong academic record may also be directly admitted.

PhD students are required to have a minimum of 24 credit hours in residence. Students have to pass two qualifying exams: a general comprehensive exam and a specialization exam covering the intended area of research. The general comprehensive exam covers algorithms, architecture, operating systems, programming languages and an exam in the student's intended area of research. The PhD student is also required to present and defend a prospectus that describes the intended research topic. Finally, the PhD dissertation has to be successfully defended.

PhD students must, at an early stage, identify a dissertation advisor from one of the full-time CS faculty who shares their research interests. Recent and current research areas of the CS faculty are listed on the Research Pages.