Wind Science & Engineering (WiSE), Ph.D.

 Program Advisor:  Dr. Delong Zuo, Professor of Civil Engineering

About the Wind Science and Engineering Doctoral Program

Texas Tech University offers a unique multidisciplinary Ph.D. in Wind Science and Engineering. The educational objective of the program is to provide students with the broad education necessary to pursue research and solve problems related to the detrimental effects of windstorms (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorms) and the beneficial effects of wind (e.g., wind energy). Each student's core coursework and dissertation research are multidisciplinary. The doctorate requires at least 60 semester hours of graduate studies in addition to a dissertation.

These 60 hours include six required core courses listed below, field of emphasis courses, and an external internship. 

A master's degree is strongly recommended. Graduate courses completed during a master's degree can be transferred if they are in an emphasis field of study (i.e., atmospheric science, engineering, economics, business administrations, social/behavior science or a combination to have an emphasis area in wind energy, wind engineering experiments, economics/risk management, damage documentation and analysis, emergency management). The courses to be transferred must be approved by the program advisor. 

Required Courses

The students are required to take at least six courses from at least three of the following four categories of courses.

Physical Sciences

• ATMO 5316 - Dynamics of Severe Storms
• ATMO 5319 - Boundary Layer Meteorology
• ATMO 5332 - Regional-scale Numerical Weather Prediction
• ATMO 5352 - Wind Science and Modeling

Engineering

• CE 5331 - Application of Machine Learning in Structural Engineering
• CE 5348 - Wind Engineering
• CS 5370 - Introduction to Machine Learning
• IE 5306 - Safety Engineering: Advanced Systems Safety Engineering
• ME 5336: Computational Fluid Dynamics

Social, Behavior Science and Economics

• BECO 5310 - Economic Analysis for Business
• ENCO 5313 - Energy Economics
• MCOM 5326 - Risk Communications/Management
• PHIL 5125 - Introduction to Research Ethics
• SOC 5327 - Seminar in Demography

Quantitative/Qualitative Analysis

• ANTH 5305 - Method and Theory in Cultural Anthropology
• ATMO 5331 - Analysis of Geophysical Data Fields
• ECO 5301 - Mathematical Economics
• ECO 5331 Econometrics I
• GENV 5309 - Quantitative Methods in Geographic Research
• GENV 5342 - Qualitative Methods in Disasters
• STAT 5378 - Stochastic Processes
• STAT 5379 - Time Series Analysis

Additional Courses

Additional courses are required to fulfill requirements of 60 semester credit hours. The specific courses are chosen by the student with the advice and consent of the doctoral advisor, depending on the student's area of research emphasis. Some of the courses available to fulfill the additional course requirements are:

• ATMO 5327 - Radar Meteorology
• ATMO 5328 - Synoptic and Mesoscale Dynamics
• ATMO 5351 - Meteorological Data Acquisition and Instrumentation Systems
• CE 5331 - Advanced Work in Specific Fields
• CE 5346 - Structural Dynamics I
• CE 5347 - Structural Dynamics II
• IE 5320 - Systems Theory
• FIN 5320 - Financial Management Concepts
• MATH 5334 - Numerical Analysis I
• MATH 5335 - Numerical Analysis II
• PUAD 5352 - Public Policy Analysis
• WE 5300 - Advanced Technical Wind Energy I
• WE 5301 - Advanced Technical Wind Energy II
• WE 5302 - Renewable Energy Finance and Economics
• WE 5320 - Renewable Energy Policy

Additional Requirements

Coursework for students is tailored with the advice and consent of their doctoral advisors to provide background for interdisciplinary research. Course descriptions are given under each departmental listing of courses.

Students are also required to complete 6-credit hours of off-campus external internship at an academic institution, in a governmental or private laboratory, or with a private company. Opportunities are also available to complete this internship requirement abroad.

Students pursue interdisciplinary research under the guidance of the chair or co-chairs of their advisory committee. Graduate faculty members from at least two disciplines will be represented on each student's advisory committee. Research must be interdisciplinary and can include a combination of engineering, atmospheric sciences, economics, physical sciences, and mathematics. Field/lab experiments, analytical research, or numerical simulations are examples of acceptable dissertation research.

Students must complete a qualifying examination to be admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree. The qualifying examination questions are based on a dissertation proposal, which is provided to the advisory committee by the student prior to the qualifying examination. Additionally, students shall have at least one paper based on their dissertation research published (or accepted to be published) in a peer-reviewed journal prior to graduation.

Financial support in the form of scholarships, assistantships, and fellowships is available to qualified students. See the National Wind Institute (www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/) for more details of the degree program, the research interests of faculty affiliates, and ongoing research topics.