Doctor of Philosophy ( Ph.D)

Sports and High Performance Materials

The Sports and High Performance Materials research degree is a collaboration between two of the university's premier research schools, the School of Polymers and High Performance Materials and the School of Human Performance and Recreation.

The educational objective of the program is to create professional research scientists who have the specific multi-disciplinary advanced research skills to develop and test new materials that significally improve athletic and human performance

Admission Requirements: Necessary to Formally Enter the Program

• demonstrated excellence in course work,
• pasing the cumulative examinations,
• passing or an oral examination that follows a written independent research proposal
• hold a Master's degree from an institution approved by a recognized accrediting agency
• must be eligible to re-enter in good standing the last college or university attended
• must present evidence by an official transcript of a grade point avaerage of no lower than 3.5 (calculated on a 4.0 scale) on previous graduate course work
• must have three letters of recommendation from persons qualified to assess the applicant's readiness for doctoral work
• must have results from the general test of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) sent to Graduate Admissions
• international students must submit TOEFL scores

Admission to candidacy requires:

• no more than 2 grades lower than a B in the first 27 hours of core courses
• minimum GPA of 3.5 in at least 30 hourse of graduate courses taken at USM, including the core courses and research
• passing nine (9) of eighteen (18) cumulative examinations
• passing an oral examination that following the completion of a written independent research proposal
• arrange for a graduate advisor by the end of the first semester

Additional requirements for the Ph.D degree dealing with residency, the research tools, the comittee, the dissertation, the dissertation defense, application for candidacy and graduation are described in the graduate bulletin.

Specific details of admision and program requirements are outlined in a separate handbook provided by the Sports and High Performance Materials program.

Career Opportunities

Students graduating from this program will be research professionals who are specifically trained to:

• study
• understand
• improve the relationship between materials, safety, and human performance throughout the sporting goods industry.

Some of the areas where students will find employment are:

• sport product management
• sport product design
• reearch
• sport product development
• sales
• marketing
• manufacturing

Course Requirements (36 hrs. minimum)

Doctoral students must take all core courses.

PSC 510 Safety Principles and Procedures in Chemical Sciences ( 1 hr)

PSC 701 Organic Polymer Chemistry I (3 hrs)

PSC 710 Polymer Physical Chemistry I: Solution Properties (3hrs)

PSC 702 Organic Polymer Chemistry II or
PSC 712 Polymer Physical Chemistry III: Solid State (3 hrs)

PSC 789 Polymer Science Seminar (1 hr)

PSC 820 Advanced Composite Materials (3 hrs)

PSC 820L: Advanced Composite Materials Laboratoary (2 hrs)

HPR 701 Advanced Exercise Physiology I (3 hrs)

HPR 701L Advanced Exercise Physiology I Lab (2 hrs)

HPR 704 Test & Measurement in Human Performance (3 hrs)

HPR 734 Advanced Biomechanics (3 hrs)

HPR 734L Advanced Biomechanics Lab (3hrs)

HPR 691 Research (1-12 hrs)

PSC or HPR 698 Thesis (1 - 6)

In addition, the student is required to complete nine (9) hours of 800 level electives and twelve (12) dissertation hours