Doctoral Program – Mathematics

Doctoral Program in Mathematics

The UCF Math PhD program started from Fall 1993 with a Financial Mathematics track added in Fall 2017 and it has awarded 95 PhD degrees. Currently the program has 51 active PhD students with 49 graduate teaching/research assistantships (Fall 2021).

The program has awarded 95 PhD degrees since 1993 (Fall 2021).

The program admitted 16 new PhD students in the 2021 Spring/Fall semesters.

PhD degree is conferred for 2 students in the spring/summer semester 2021, and for 30 students since 2016. They have tenure-tracked position at Middle Tennessee State University (2021), and postdoc positions at State University of New York(2021(, Boston College(2020), Washington University at Saint Louis (2020, now tenure-track position at University of Memphis), Michigan State University (2020), University of Maryland (2019), Southern University of Science and Technology (China, 2019), University of Wyoming (2019), KTH Royal Institute of Technology(Sweden, 2019), Duke University (2017), College of William and Mary (2017, now at Kennesaw State University), University of Stuttgart (Germany, 2016, now at Indian School of Mines), and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Saudi, 2016, now at University of Southern Denmark). They also have professorship in university or community college, and jobs in government agencies and the industry.

The UCF Math PhD program provides broad based training in pure, applied and industrial mathematics. The program consists of at least 75 credit hours of course work beyond the bachelor’s degree, of which a minimum of 39 hours of formal course work, exclusive of independent study and directed research. Students are required to take several core courses and at least two course sequences, and also electives outside the department. Students must pass the cumulative qualifying examinations at the PhD level after taking core courses, and pass candidacy examinations after taking two course sequences. By the third year, a student should have selected an advisor, formed a committee and started a research program. In the semesters following the candidacy examination, a student takes at least 15 credit hours of dissertation research and engages original and creative mathematical research that pushes back the frontier of knowledge. A PhD is awarded after a successful dissertation defense.

Wu Jing (PhD 2006), professor at Fayetteville State University. According to Dr. Jing, “The outstanding faculty members and the strong academic atmosphere made UCF a great place to pursuit advanced degree in mathematics.”

Arita Dutta (PhD 2016), Postdoc at the University of Edinburgh and KAUST, Saudi Arabia. Dutta commented that “the faculties in the math department are working on cutting edge research problems and there are ample opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.”

The UCF Math PhD program produces students who attain distinction in their fields of research. The faculty in the program are dedicated to the graduate education and many of them are recognized as outstanding scholars. Our faculty members include an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematics, a Marcus Wallenberg Prize winner, Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, and a National Science Foundation Career awardee.
Students in the UCF Math PhD program can specialize in many areas of pure and applied mathematics, including Approximation Theory, Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis, Big Data and Mathematical Statistics, Combinatorics and Graph Theory, Commutative Algebra and Algebraic Geometry, Control and Optimization, Differential and Symplectic Geometry, Differential Equations, Fluid and Plasma Dynamics, Inverse and Ill-posed Problems, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Finance, Nonlinear Waves and Nonlinear Dynamics, Numerical Analysis, Orthogonal Polynomials, Real and Functional Analysis, Probability and Stochastic Analysis, Tomography and Medical Imaging, Topology, and Wave Propagation.

Students in the UCF Math PhD program are encouraged to interact with other departments, institutions, and industries. For students to pursue research in a variety of disciplines, the program offers flexibility in the composition of the core courses as well as the qualifying examination. Many faculty members in the UCF Math Department conduct interdisciplinary research and supervise graduate students in other departments, research institutes and centers within the university.
Graduates in the UCF Math PhD program regularly go on to successful positions in academics, government agency and industry.

Haimei Shao (PhD, 2011), BB&T Funds Management. Rigorous training at UCF made her capable of analyzing and solving problems in the real world by looking into the roots of the problem and creating the solutions from the roots as well.

Aaron Masino (PhD 2004) , The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr Masino says. “Very few graduate students are afforded all of these opportunities.” to do research.

For additional information about the UCF Math PhD program such as curriculum, application requirements, admission procedure, financials etc, please explore Math PhD program including financial math track in the ucf graduate catalog and the program’s Q&A website, or contact the program director at Eduardo.Teixeira@ucf.edu