ucsb physics phd stipend

PhD Advising

As a Physics Ph.D. student, you have your own individual strengths, weaknesses, interests, and goals. You’re all different, right? True! But in our experience some pieces of advice apply to everyone.

General Advice

We know you’re busy. Being a TA and doing homework for grad classes can take a lot of time. But nevertheless it is important to take time to connect with the community. Finding out now what is going on in Broida and on campus will make it much easier to locate and connect with a research advisor. So, make the most of graduate seminar, attend colloquia, Gradloquiua, and journal clubs and check out the opportunities for outreach. Check out the department and GradLife calendars for events!

The Faculty Graduate Advisor, your Supervising Committee, and the rest of us in the department, will work with you to design a Ph.D. program that is right for you. The rules of the Department allow substantial flexibility, built around a solid core which defines what it means to be a Physics Ph.D. Talk to the Faculty Graduate Advisor if you think you need some extra courses to fill in missing background, or if you think should be exempted from some of the required courses. Would you like to check out an advanced course but don’t have the time? Think about auditing the course, just sitting in on some lectures, or taking it pass/fail.

It’s never too early to start talking to faculty, postdocs, and fellow students in your areas of interest. Maybe you’re wondering when to start doing research and what background you need? Ask and find out! Sooner is better than later. Not sure which of several areas you want to pursue? Try them out! Talk to the faculty about doing some sort of trial project, or reading course, or maybe just attending their group meetings to see what’s going on.

You can get further advice from your Supervising Committee or the faculty advisor. For further advice from your fellow grad students, check out the GradLife Advice Pages, or contact any of the grad student members of the GradLife committee. Likewise, if you have any advice for us about how to improve graduate life in the department, please let us know!

Faculty Graduate & Research Advisors

The Faculty Graduate Advisor provides guidance on course selection, progress to degree, preparing for advancement, selecting a research advisor, and any issues that influence students’ academic progress. Students meet with the Faculty Graduate Advisor on a quarterly basis to complete an academic progress evaluation until the time they select a Research Advisor and advance to candidacy.

Jennifer Farrar

Zvonimir Dogic

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Division of Mathematical, Life, and Physical Sciences Broida Hall 3019 Telephone: (805) 893-4567 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.physics.ucsb.edu Department Chair: Claudio Campagnari

The Physics graduate program consists of a PhD in Physics, which may optionally be with an Astrophysics emphasis. The requirements for these are linked below. In addition to departmental requirements, candidates for graduate degrees must fulfill the university requirements described in the Graduate Education section of this catalog.

A candidate for admission to the Ph.D. program must present an undergraduate degree in physics, or its equivalent.  Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores in the verbal, quantitative, and analytical sections as well as the Advanced Subject in physics are not required and will not be accepted for Fall 2022 applicants. In addition to departmental admission requirements, applicants must also meet the university requirements for admission described in the “Graduate Education” section of this catalog. Further information on the graduate program, and a description of current research, can be found at: www.physics.ucsb.edu .

Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy - Physics (Requirements - PDF)

Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy - Physics - Astrophysics Emphasis (Requirements - PDF)

Optional Interdisciplinary Emphases

Students pursuing a doctoral degree in Physics may petition to add the following Optional Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Emphases: Bioengineering.

Requirement sheets for each emphasis may be found on this page .

All provisions herein are subject to change without notice. Copyright © 2011 The Regents of the University of California, All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use / Accessibility / Last Modified January 23, 2015 12:19 PM PDT / Questions or Comments? Please email us

PhD Stipend Survey Results

The living wage ratio (LW ratio) normalizes each gross pay entry to the local living wage. The purpose is to allow you to quickly compare the pay received by students at universities in different cost-of-living areas. See the FAQ for more information.

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Salary Scales for the 2023-24 Academic Year

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Fellowships

The Graduate Division provides fellowships to recruit outstanding graduate degree candidates. Fellowships may include tuition and fees, health insurance, non-resident supplemental tuition (NRST), stipends. Students are nominated by their departments during the application process.

For more support on finding funding, visit the  GradPost's Funding Resources page  or the Competitions page .

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Information about central campus fellowships, including specific awards, eligibility, and examples. 

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Learn about fellowships offered by the University of California.

PhysStipendRankings: PhD Stipend Rankings

PhysStipendRankings is a stipend-based ranking of top-paying Physics departments in US. We may implement support for other countries and you are welcomed to contribute! For a real academic ranking, please refer to U.S.News , etc.

• Stipend is the annual, 12-month, pre-tax allowance graciously granted by the institution. Note that some departments do not have guaranteed summer funding , and we are currently working to collect such data. Departments with summer funding guarentee are tagged with a summer label. For now, the list is not complete.
• Fees are annual non-reimbursible tariffs (including health insurance) reclaimed by said institution.
• Living cost is calculated based on the MIT Living Wage Calculator for the institution's city.

We have received a lot of comments that the living cost calculated by the MIT Living Cost Calculator does not really reflect the real living cost in multiple areas. We are considering alternative metrics and data sources. If you are aware of something we can use, please feel free to submit issues or pull requests on GitHub.

This ranking is part informational and part satire, designed to democratize information on how PhD students in physics and related areas are paid for their labor – inadequately , in most cases.

Most of the frontend code of this website is from CSRankings , and we intentionally used the same template. The code of this website can be found at https://github.com/PhysStipendRankings/PhysStipendRankings , and the data presented can be found as a CSV file here .

Contributing: Everyone is welcomed to submit patches or report the stipend via pull requests . Another option to submit valuable datapoints is through this Google Form . Also, feel free to submit issues on GitHub .

• Gathering data for summer funding guarantees. We plan to incorporate a feature that allows users to exclude non-guaranteed funds when calculating the stipends.
• Highlighting universities that offer 100% appointments during the summer, e.g. UW, instead of the typical 50% appointments.
• Adding a verification system for stipends, where we can confirm the details of the stipend with an offer letter or paystub record, and displaying a checkmark in the "Stipend" column to indicate that the stipend is verified.
• Add alternative sources of living cost. In the future, users should have the ability to choose between different sources of living cost while ranking.
• Data is often unavailable for the precise district in which the university is located. In such cases, we use data for the county or wider metro area. This often skews the estimate lower. For instance, UC San Diego is located in La Jolla, one of the most expensive districts in the US, but we resort to using figures for the wider San Diego county. Same goes for Princeton vs. Mercer County, etc.
• The Calculator states that the estimates are what is required "to cover the costs of their family's basic needs where they live". However, how much one needs to sustain onself is subjective, and users have reported that they can live on much less.

PhysStipendRankings is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License . The frontend (i.e., CSS and HTML) of this website is based on CSRankings, a work at https://github.com/emeryberger/CSrankings . The copyright of CSRankings is owned by Emery Berger . The copyright of the non-CSRankings part of PhysStipendRankings is owned by its contributors .

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Striving to solve environmental problems by integrating science, management, law, economics, and policy — a unique and celebrated interdisciplinary approach. Meet the Bren School.

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Offering master’s and doctoral degrees in technology management, TMP is training future global leaders of technology and business, fostering a new generation of scholars and cultivating cutting-edge research.

Research Experiences for Undergraduates Department of Physics - UC Santa Barbara

Summer Research in Physics and Astronomy at UC Santa Barbara   ( PROGRAM FLYER )  Applications open now!

June 24, 2024 to august 23, 2024.

This 9-week Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Summer Research Program for undergraduates. Students will work with faculty and graduate students on a variety of cutting-edge research projects in Physics and Astronomy. The program also aims to provide all-round professional development through weekly activities, and a strong cohort experience through shared housing and social activities.

Program Overview

Research Projects This program aims to provide opportunity for a diverse group of undergraduates to conduct summer research in areas that span a broad range of topics in contemporary Physics. Research will be conducted under the supervision of UCSB Physics faculty working at the forefront of their field. Research areas include Astronomy/Astrophysics, Elementary Particle Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Physics of Soft and Living Matter, and General Relativity and Quantum Gravity. Students will work on individualized projects, and will be expected to give a presentation to the Physics REU group at the end of the program, and will also have the opportunity to participate in a common poster session for all UCSB REU participants from a variety of fields

Professional Activities Along with doing research, a rich program of activities is planned: these include close mentoring by REU program faculty, practice sessions for presentations, lunchtime seminars by faculty/researchers, lab visits, career development workshops, and information sessions on applying to Graduate School and preparing for the Physics GRE.

Social Activities We plan several social activities and local trips intended to facilitate interaction and community-building among REU students, and with UCSB Physics faculty, graduate students and UCSB Physics undergraduates. 

Travel, Stipend and Housing

Students will receive a $700/week stipend, free shared housing, and some support towards round-trip travel to Santa Barbara. The provided shared housing will be in the San Joaquin Apartments apartments at UCSB.

Eligibility

(please read closely before applying)

• Students must be U.S. Citizens or U.S. Permanent Residents to receive funding from our National Science Foundation funded REU program.
• Students must be enrolled in a 2-year or a 4-year academic institution, and may not have graduated by Summer 2024. That is, participants must be continuing with their undergraduate education in Fall 2024, after the REU.
• Strong preference is given to students who have at least completed a one-year Calculus-based Introductory Physics sequence.
• Women and students from traditionally underrepresented groups and institutions are encouraged to apply.
• Students are expected to attend the entire program to receive the full benefit of all activities. Accommodation for arriving and departing up to 1 week early will be considered for students with a college academic calendar that requires them to depart early, and such requests should be made clearly at the time of application.