• MS Degree Requirements
• PhD Degree Requirements
• Curriculum

The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences offers a graduate program that is rigorous, highly interdisciplinary, and focused on the training of academics. Although graduates of the program are quite successful in competing for professorships, many graduates choose careers in industry or governemnt research labs. The program is focused in two broad areas, solid Earth and surface Earth, and the principal areas of research include plate tectonics, seismology, mineral physics, and planetary science, as well as sedimentology, stratigraphic analysis, organic geochemistry and biogeochemistry, and paleoclimatology/paleoceanography.

The small graduate student body provides an opportunity for close relationships between students and faculty and permits instruction and research under joint supervision of several faculty members. Entering students choose a research advisor within the first quarter who, together with an advising committee, assists in the development of research projects and individualized programs of study. Students who have majored in other sciences are given opportunities to complete the necessary basic background in geological sciences. Doctoral research stresses the development of new principles, concepts, and discoveries.

Applicants should contact the program or see Web site www.earth.northwestern.edu to learn about program-specific requirements for admission.

Faculty

The primary appointment for those faculty with joint or affiliate status in another program is noted in parentheses.