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Aero Eng MS/PhD Field Rules

Aerospace Engineering Field Rules

Last Update: July 11, 2025

Graduate education at Cornell university is governed by the Graduate School’s Code of Legislation. These rules expand the Code, and provide details and policies specific to the Aerospace Engineering graduate field, but in all cases, the Code takes precedence.

The Aerospace Engineering graduate field is administered by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), the Graduate Field Administrator (GFA), and the Sibley School Associate Director of Graduate Affairs (ADGA).  In all instances where the positions of DGS and ADGA are held by different faculty, the DGS will defer all duties (except for approving graduate forms and committee change requests) to the ADGA. In this case, the ADGA will consult the DGS on all decisions related to the field.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Registration Units

One registration unit corresponds to the satisfactory completion of one academic semester (Fall or Spring) of full-time study and research. Six registration units are required for a Ph.D. degree.

Time-to-Degree

All requirements for the Ph.D. must be completed within seven years (14 registration units).

Teaching Experience

Two semesters of teaching experience are required of all Ph.D. students. This requirement is usually fulfilled through Teaching Assistantships (TAs).  International students whose native language is not English are required to undergo screening by the International Teaching Assistant Development Program (ITADP) and may be required to take courses in English and pedagogy before assuming TA duties. The College of Engineering requires all teaching assistants to participate in TA Training offered by the College.  In exceptional circumstances, students may petition the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) for a reduction in the required amount of teaching experience.

Ph.D. students on a three-year (or longer) fellowship may satisfy the teaching requirement by serving one semester as a TA and performing an additional qualified teaching activity. A qualified teaching activity shall be approved by the DGS and Special Committee chair, and must involve teaching technical material to a group (two or more people) and involve at least 15 contact hours.

Subjects and Concentrations

Major Subject and Concentrations

The major subject for all students in the field of Aerospace Engineering is either Aerospace Engineering or Robotics. The major concentration for the Aerospace Engineering Subject must be one of the following:

  • Aerodynamics
  • Aerospace Systems
  • Biomedical Mechanics
  • Dynamics and Control
  • Materials and Structures
  • Propulsion
  • Thermal Sciences

Usually, approximately 4 to 6 graduate courses in Aerospace Engineering are taken for credit to fulfill this requirement, at the discretion of the student’s Special Committee (see below).

The major concentration for the Robotics Subject must be Robotics. Robotics Ph.D. students must fulfill all of the Robotics Ph.D. requirements, which include course requirements, and will be maintained by the Robotics program.

Minor Subjects

All students are required to take one minor subject outside of the fields of Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering. A student in the Aerospace Engineering Subject may elect to take a second minor in any field (including Mechanical Engineering or Aerospace Engineering). A student in the Robotics Subject must have Aerospace Engineering as one of their minor subjects.  The concentration studied for each minor subject must be distinct from that of the major subject.

Special Committee

A minimum of three graduate faculty members comprise the Special Committee for a Ph.D. student. The Chair of the committee represents the major subject.  Each Minor Subject is represented by an additional committee member.

At least two members of a student’s committee should be able to assess expertly the technical content of the student’s research. In consultation with the Chair of the Special Committee, the DGS may add a field-appointed member to the student’s committee if the DGS believes that the committee, as constituted, does not represent this level of expertise.

The Special Committee chair must be selected by the student, and the selection communicated to the Graduate School by the end of the student’s first semester.  First-year student-committee chair matching will be mediated by the MAE department’s Associate Director for Graduate Affairs. The DGS retains their sign-off authority on all committee matters.

By agreeing to serve as a student’s Special Committee chair, a faculty member accepts an obligation to provide funding (as needed) in the form of GRA appointments for the duration of the student’s period of enrollment, conditional upon the student remaining in good academic standing and the student’s satisfactory performance in any teaching or research-related responsibilities, tracked, in part, via the annual Student Progress Review (SPR).  

A full committee must be selected by the student and the selection communicated to the Graduate School by the end of the student’s third semester. Students are encouraged to meet with their Special Committees at least once each year to review progress toward their degree.

All members of the Special Committee commit to supporting the student in their degree program, to making themselves available for A and B exams (see below), and to answering student communications and filling out graduate school forms in a timely fashion. In particular, all committee members must complete their sections of graduate school forms within 3 business days of receipt when they have been given prior notice to expect the form, unless a prolonged period of unavailability has been previously communicated to students. 

Dissertation

Candidates for the Ph.D. degree must complete a dissertation constituting an important and original contribution to knowledge.  Papers Option

With the unanimous agreement of the Special Committee, students are allowed to elect the ‘papers option’ form of dissertation, which is made up of a series of relatively independent chapters with each chapter written as a paper suitable for publication. The student must be the first or single author on each paper. 

Examinations

The field of Aerospace Engineering requires the successful completion of three examinations for the Ph.D. degree.

Qualifying Examination (Q Exam)

This section primarily describes the rules for students taking the Q exam in the Aerospace Engineering Subject.  Students in the Robotics Subject must take the Robotics Q Exam, which will be organized by the Robotics program. Details of the Robotics Q exam will be maintained by the Robotics program. All students in the Robotics Subject take their Q Exam at the end of first Spring semester after their matriculation.

Students must take their Q Exam in their major subject: Aerospace Engineering Subject students may not take the Robotics Q, and Robotics students may not take any of the other Q exams. The Qualifying Examination must be passed before the Admission to Candidacy Examination can be taken.

The purpose of the qualifying exam is to gauge the candidate’s potential as a doctoral student. The scope of topics should not be so broad as to influence the selection of courses taken by the candidate prior to the exam. A thorough understanding of relevant undergraduate courses and graduate courses already taken should be sufficient to pass the examination.

Students in the Aerospace Engineering Subject have the option to select from multiple different Q exams, in consultation with their advisor. A complete list of available exams will be maintained in the graduate field handbook. Organization of Q Exam committees for the Aerospace Engineering Subject Q exams is deferred to the ADGA. The associate director has the option of not offering some or all Q exams after the Fall semester, but must organize all exams needed by students after the Spring semester. 

Students who matriculate into the Aerospace Engineering Subject with Master’s degrees are expected to take the Q Exam at the end of their first semester; students entering with a Bachelor’s degree are expected to take the Q Exam at the end of their second semester. Students entering with an MS may petition the ADGA to defer their Q Exam until their second semester. If an exam is not offered in the term when a student would regularly take it, they must take it when next offered.

Based on the distribution of candidates over the areas of concentration, the ADGA will appoint a small number of ad hoc qualifying examination committees and schedule the Q exams.  The ADGA may delegate the ad hoc committee organization and scheduling to the discipline group leads related to each concentration area. Each committee is responsible for examining the students assigned to it. The students assigned to a committee (not more than six per committee) will have chosen to be examined in related areas of concentration.

Each ad hoc Q exam committee will consist of three field faculty members with expertise on the exam topic. One of these three field faculty members will be chosen to be the Committee Chair. Aerospace Engineering Field membership and Mechanical Engineering Field membership may be treated as equivalent when selecting faculty for the ad hoc Q committees. Whenever possible, a Q exam committee will not include the advisor of any of the students being examined by the committee. 

Any faculty member of the field may join any ad hoc Qualifying Examination Committee as a voting member provided that they participate in the examination of all students examined by that committee. Faculty wishing to join the committee must notify the ad hoc Qualifying Examination Committee Chair and ADGA two business days in advance.

Any faculty member of the field may observe the examination of any student; however, unless they are a member of the ad hoc Qualifying Examination Committee, they cannot take part in the examination, nor can they vote on the outcome. Those wishing to observe an examination must notify the ad hoc Qualifying Examination Committee Chair one day in advance.

Prior to the Q exam, the GFA will solicit a short letter of recommendation from each student’s Special Committee Chair. This letter should include an appraisal of the student’s research performance to date. The GFA will notify the students of their examination times, and provide them with whatever information or instructions are needed for the conduct of the examination, as specified by the ad hoc committees. The GFA will provide each ad hoc Q exam committee with the advisor letters and the current transcript for each student to be examined. 

The ad hoc Q exam committee chair will be responsible for: discussing the format for the examination with the students to be examined; establishing a format for the examination and assigning individual responsibilities to committee members; and reporting the results of the examinations to the ADGA, DGS, GFA, each student, and each student’s advisors. 

Based on all the information available, the committee decides by vote whether each candidate passes the examination; a majority is required. In case of failure, the committee notifies the ADGA and DGS to recommend whether a retake of the examination should be granted. Students may retake the Q exam only if the ad hoc Qualifying Exam Committee recommends so.

The format of the exam is as follows:  The student receives instructions from the Qualifying Examination Committee via the GFA no later than 24 hours before the exam.  For most exams, the student prepares a presentation (of a duration specified by the committee, typically ~15 minutes) on a topic specified in advance by the committee. The topic is at the discretion of the committee.  The topic may be (but does not have to be) related to the candidate’s research work or coursework.  The topic may be open-ended or may constitute the solution to a set problem or exercise.  The committee may present the student with one topic/question, may allow students to choose from a set of topics/questions, or may allow students complete discretion. Following the presentation, the student is then questioned for the remainder of the hour. It is desirable for questioning to have some uniformity across the candidates to facilitate consistent evaluation. 

Q exam committee chairs will inform the ADGA, GFA, DGS, student, and student’s advisor of exam results by email as soon as they are available, and no later than one day after the completion of the last exam given by the committee.  For students in the Mechanical Engineering subject, the only possible exam outcomes are pass or fail. The ad hoc Q exam committee may make recommendations regarding future actions by students passing the exam, including taking additional coursework or TAing particular courses.  The ADGA and DGS will make best faith efforts to implement such recommendations, but they will be considered non-binding.  For students in the Robotics Subject, possible outcomes include pass, fail, and conditional pass.  All conditions related to conditional passing results for Robotics students must be resolved before the start of the Fall semester following the examination. 

In exceptional circumstances a faculty member may appeal the decision to fail a candidate. The appeal must be communicated to the ADGA, in writing, within one week of the examination. The appeal will be considered at a joint meeting of the ADGA, DGS, and ad hoc Qualifying Examination Committee that examined the candidate. The participants of this meeting will review the matter and decide the question by a vote.

Admission to Candidacy Examination (A Exam)

The purpose of the A-exam is to determine whether the candidate has attained mastery of the major and minor subjects.  In addition, a review may be conducted of the progress of the research and of the plans to complete the dissertation.

Conducted by the student’s Special Committee, this examination is expected to be taken before the seventh registration unit, after at least two units of registration, and must be taken at least two semesters before the Defense of Dissertation Examination (B Exam). All members of the student’s Special Committee must participate in the exam.

At least seven calendar days before the date of the exam, a ‘Schedule of Examination’ form, signed by each member of the Special Committee, the DGS, and the GFA, must be submitted to the Graduate School and an announcement of the exam made to the field faculty. Within three business days after the exam, a ‘Results of Examination’ form, recording the outcome of the exam and signed by each member of the Special Committee, the DGS, and the GFA, must be submitted to the Graduate School.

Defense of Dissertation Examination (B Exam)

The B Exam comprises a public presentation of the student’s dissertation followed by an oral exam by the student’s Special Committee. All members of the student’s Special Committee must participate in the examination. All members of the field are encouraged to attend and participate in the public portion of students’ B-Exams. 

The B Exam must be taken at least two registration units after the A Exam and no earlier than one month before completion of the minimum registration requirement.

At least seven calendar days before the date of the exam, a ‘Schedule of Examination’ form, signed by each member of the Special Committee ,the DGS, and the GFA, must be submitted to the Graduate School and an announcement of the exam made to the field faculty. Within three business days after the exam, a ‘Results of Examination’ form, signed by each member of the Special Committee, the DGS, and the GFA, recording the outcome of the exam, must be submitted to the Graduate School.

Unless the Special Committee unanimously agrees to a different timeline, students are expected to provide their Special Committee a complete draft of their dissertation six weeks prior to the B exam.  Following the B exam, students have 60 days to complete all required edits to the dissertation and submit a final copy to the electronic thesis/dissertation submission system.  Physical copies of the dissertation are not required.

Other

There is no foreign language requirement, however, students are encouraged to acquire and maintain foreign language skills.

Ph.D. students must pass MAE 7999 (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Colloquium) at least two times before completion of the Ph.D. degree. The DGS may reduce this requirement at their discretion when student tenure is short or other classes, teaching requirements, or repeated enrollment in absentia preclude enrollment in MAE 7999. Students desiring a reduction should petition the DGS explaining why enrollment in two terms was impossible or onerous. All students matriculating in the Fall semester are required to enroll in and complete MAE 6949 (Seminar for M.S. and First-Year MAE Ph.D. Students) in their first semester. Students matriculating in the Spring have the option of taking MAE 6949 the following Fall, but are not required to do so.

Master of Science (M.S.)

Registration Units

One registration unit corresponds to the satisfactory completion of one academic semester (Fall and Spring) of full-time study and research. Two registration units are required for an M.S. degree with a Thesis, and four registration units are required for a M.S. degree without a thesis.

Time-to-Degree

All requirements for the M.S. degree must be completed within four years (eight registration units).

The field of Aerospace Engineering does not admit students into an M.S.-only degree program. The Field may grant an M.S. degree in any of the following circumstances:

Non-Thesis M.S.

A Non-Thesis M.S. degree may be awarded to a doctoral student who has earned at least four registration units, and one of the following:

  1. has successfully completed the A Exam,
  2. has withdrawn from the Ph.D. program after failing the A Exam, but performed at a level commensurate to a passed Final Exam for an M.S. degree, or
  3. has successfully completed a Final Examination for the M.S. degree, but will not continue in the Ph.D. program.

M.S. with Thesis

An M.S. degree (with thesis) may be awarded to a doctoral student who has earned at least two registration units, and submits a “Change of Program” to an M.S. degree, submits a Thesis, and takes an M.S. Examination. The student does not continue in the Ph.D. program.

Subjects

One major and one minor subject are required for the M.S. degree. The minor subject must be  other than Aerospace Engineering. The concentration selected for the minor subject must be different from the concentration selected for the major subject.

Special Committee

A minimum of two faculty members compose the committee. The Special Committee chair represents the major subject and another appropriate faculty member represents the minor subject. A thesis advisor, not representing a subject area, may be added.

The Special Committee chair must be selected by the student, and the selection communicated to the Graduate School by the end of the student’s first semester. First-year student-committee chair matching will be mediated and approved by the MAE department’s Associate Director for Graduate AffairsADGA. The DGS retains their sign-off authority on all committee matters.

A full committee must be selected by the student and the selection communicated to a Special Committee Selection and Change form must be filed with the Graduate School by the end of the student’s second semester. Students are encouraged to meet with their Special Committees at least once each year to review progress toward their degree.

All members of the Special Committee commit to supporting the student in their degree program, to making themselves available for M exams (see below), and to answering student communications and filling out graduate school forms in a timely fashion. In particular, all committee members must complete their sections of graduate school forms within 3 business days of receipt, unless a prolonged period of unavailability has been previously communicated to students. 

Examination (M Exam)

A final examination conducted by the Special Committee is required for an M.S. with thesis. At the committee’s discretion, this examination may be entirely oral or both oral and written, and a portion of the examination may be opened as a public presentation of the thesis. 

All members of the student’s Special Committee are expected to participate in the examination. All members of the field are encouraged to attend and participate in the public portion of students’ M Exams.

At least seven calendar days before the date of the exam, a ‘Schedule of Examination’ form, signed by each member of the Special Committee ,the DGS, and the GFA, must be submitted to the Graduate School and an announcement of the exam made to the field faculty. Within three days after the exam, a ‘Results of Examination’ form, signed by each member of the Special Committee ,the DGS, and the GFA, recording the outcome of the exam, must be submitted to the Graduate School.

Thesis

Candidates for the M.S. degree (with thesis) are required to submit a thesis based on the work in their major subject. 

Unless the Special Committee unanimously agrees to a different timeline, students are expected to provide their Special Committee a complete draft of their thesis six weeks prior to the M exam.  Following the M exam, students have 60 days to complete all required edits to the thesis and submit a final copy to the electronic thesis/dissertation submission system.  Physical copies of the thesis are not required.

Other

There is no language requirement or teaching requirement for an M.S. degree.

Minor in Aerospace Engineering 

Ph.D. students pursuing a Ph.D. in other graduate fields may study Aerospace Engineering or Robotics as a Minor Subject. .  Faculty serving as Minor Committee Members representing Aerospace Engineering usually require that students take at least two graduate courses in Aerospace Engineering for credit to complete study of AE as a Minor Subject. Similarly, faculty serving as Minor Committee Members representing Robotics usually require students take at least two graduate courses related to robotics.

Parliamentary Structure of the Field

  • All field meetings will provide access for all field members to participate remotely.  Faculty participating in meetings by teleconference and videoconference will be considered as attending.
  • Absentee voting (direct communication to the DGS of votes by field members who are unable to attend a field meeting) will be allowed for all field matters brought to a vote in regular field meetings.  To facilitate voting, all matters to be voted upon during a field meeting will be advertised prior to the meeting.  The DGS will share the exact text of all items to be brought to a vote with all field members no less than seven calendar days prior to the meeting. In the event where the wording of a motion is modified during the field meeting, the vote will be postponed to a subsequent meeting or converted to an electronic vote to allow all field members time to read the modified text. 
  • The DGS may call for an electronic vote on field matters in lieu of calling a field meeting.  In such cases, all field members will have a minimum of seven days within which to register their votes.  For purely electronic votes, the DGS will also provide a mechanism for field members to share their thoughts on the subject of the vote with the entire field.
  • All field members recognized by the graduate school at the time of a vote are voting members.
  • The quorum for field votes is one third of field members, rounded to the nearest integer.
  • Passage of all field votes requires a two thirds majority of all votes cast (including absentee votes and abstentions), in the presence of a quorum, rounded to the nearest integer.

Maintaining Standing in the Field

Field members will maintain standing within the field by participating in all field votes,  completing annual SPRs and other forms for all students in the field on whose committees they serve in a timely fashion, and actively participating in at least one of:

  • Serving on Special Committees (as chair or minor member) for field graduate students
  • Serving on Q exam committees
  • Participating in field meetings
  • Participating in graduate admissions, outreach, and/or recruitment activities

Any field member who has missed three consecutive field votes, or has not engaged in any of these field activities for a period of 3 years will be contacted by the DGS to affirm their desire to remain in the field.  If a field member does not respond to this request, or requests to be removed from the field, or continues to not participate in field activities, they will be removed from the field. Failure to abide by the graduate school’s code of legislation and these field rules may also lead to faculty being removed from the field, at the discretion of the DGS.