stanford dissertation defense

Dissertation Defense

The following steps are meant to help you begin thinking about your defense, dissertation, and eventually graduation. Please contact the Student Services Office if you have any questions about the process or requirements.

Planning Your Dissertation Defense

Steps for planning your defense.

Meet with your committee and determine a date and time. Some faculty travel extensively, so it is a good idea to start this process early.

Once you have a confirmed time, contact the Student Services Office. They will help in booking rooms for both the public and closed door sessions.

Tip : Some faculty travel extensively, so it's a good idea to start this process early. Room reservations can also be tricky depending on the time selected. The more notice you can provide, the more likely one of your top choices for rooms will be available.

Your chair must be someone outside of the department who is an Academic Council member. Your Oral Examination Committee must have a total 5 members including the University Chair. If you need help finding one, your advisor and other committee members should be able to help. University policy regarding chairs and your committee can be found in the  Stanford Bulletin .

Deliver a draft of your dissertation to each of your committee members 30 days prior to your defense. Some committee members may prefer just an emailed draft, however others may prefer a paper copy so be sure to check on preferences of each of your committee members!

Bring your University  Oral Examination Form  to the Student Services office (Gilbert 118 or via email) at least 2 weeks before your defense. The Student Services Office will bring this back to you or your advisor at your defense.

If you’d like the Student Services Office to create and post flyers for your defense, please send them a picture to use and your title 2 weeks before your defense.

Following your defense, please turn in the University Oral Examination Form to the Student Services Office as soon as possible.

Dissertation Submission

Submit your dissertation.

The following needs to be done, in order, to complete the dissertation submission process:

Visit the e-dissertation/thesis center in Axess  

This is often your advisor, but can be any Academic Council member on your committee. They will need to log in to Axess and approve your dissertation before the deadline once you’ve uploaded your dissertation.

Turn in your signed signature page and title page to the Student Services Center at Tresidder (see the guidelines PDF for formatting instructions).

Signatures must be actual ink signatures on acid-free paper.  Only your reading committee should be included on your signature page. Do NOT include your defense chair or any committee members only present for the defense.

Upload and submit your dissertation.

This  video  that will walk you through the upload process.

Guidelines for formatting, etc.

Registrar’s Office site for all dissertation information

Submission Deadlines

The entire process must be complete and dissertation approved by the Registrar’s Office by the following deadlines: Autumn Quarter 2021 – Friday, December 7, 2021 at 12:00pm Winter Quarter 2022 – Friday, March 19, 2022 at 12:00pm Spring Quarter 2022 – Wednesday, June 4, 2022 at 12:00pm Summer Quarter 2022 – Friday, August 27, 2022 at 12:00pm

Be sure that you also apply to graduate in the quarter you’re submitting! To file your application through Axess: Select "Apply to Graduate" from the drop down menu on the Student Center Academics tab and complete the entire application to graduate process.

FAQs: Dissertation & Thesis

Main navigation.

Looking for something else? Visit the Dissertation and Theses page.

Browse these frequently asked questions and answers related to preparing and submitting your dissertation or thesis.

The most common mistake students make is related to the formatting of the preliminary pages. It is important to remove both the copyright page “ii” and signature page “iii” in the electronic dissertation or thesis before uploading and final submission.

Following the title page (which is not physically numbered but counts as “i”), page numbering should start with “iv” at the Abstract (or a blank page with "iv", if your document is formatted for double-sided printing and you want the Abstract to start on a right-hand page). The Stanford Libraries will automatically insert both the copyright page (ii) and signature page (iii) into your electronic copy of the dissertation or thesis.

The Dissertation & Thesis Center is located online in Axess. You must first apply to graduate and enroll before you can access the Dissertation & Thesis Center, which opens to submissions on the first day of instruction each quarter. However, at any time, you may preview the Axess submission process through a step-by-step guide . 

Once you finish submitting your dissertation or thesis in Axess, and it has been approved by the university, the submission is considered final and no further changes are permitted.

Before the Registrar's Office can begin processing your submission, the designated Final Reader must first electronically certify that they have reviewed the final draft. Note: Upon submission, an email is automatically sent to the Final Reader informing them that they have a dissertation ready for review in Axess. 

Once they have finished the review, it takes up to a week for the Registrar's Office to complete the processing of your dissertation or thesis. You can also track the status in the Dissertation & Thesis Center in Axess, which will indicate when your Final Reader and the Registrar's Office has approved the submission.  

Please refer to this step-by-step explanation of the Dissertation & Thesis Center in Axess , which outlines the submission process and includes screenshots.

After your dissertation or thesis is approved by your Final Reader and the Registrar (the final two steps in the submission process), all files and information are handed off to Stanford Libraries. Stanford Libraries staff catalog and ensure preservation of your dissertation or thesis in the Stanford Digital Repository, where it is made available via a Persistent URL according to the embargo and copyright terms you have selected.  

You may submit your dissertation or thesis either double-sided or single-sided; it is your choice. If you choose double-sided and prefer that each section starts on a right-hand page, be sure to pay close attention to the pagination and insert blank, numbered pages as appropriate. See this webpage for specific Format Requirements .

The abstract field that you enter online during submission has a limit of 9,999 characters. The library uses this abstract field for cataloging purposes. Note: There is no maximum abstract length in the dissertation itself.

Once you complete the five pre-submission criteria listed in the Dissertation & Thesis Center, you will then be able to click on your "Proceed with Dissertation" link. This page is where you will actually upload your dissertation, abstract, and additional information. It is at this point that you will have an opportunity to place an embargo on your dissertation. 

Students have the option to delay the release by 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years. View more about embargo options on the Submit Your Dissertation or Thesis webpage.

Yes, the same margins would apply on the title page within your dissertation. On the binding edge, margins should be 1.5 inches, and 1 inch on all other sides. See this webpage for specific Format Requirements.

You will not be able to submit your dissertation or thesis until the first day of the quarter for which you have applied to graduate.

If you get this error, resave your file using Adobe Pro and upload again. Doing so will re-write your file as a valid PDF. If you do not have Adobe Pro, you can easily get access at the Lathrop Learning Hub , or email [email protected] for further assistance.

It is your choice whether to use Microsoft Word or LaTeX when creating your dissertation. All electronic dissertation submissions must be submitted in their final format as a PDF document.

For students interested in a Stanford dissertation Latex template, please refer to the the Latex style file  suthesis-2e.sty .  The information is unofficial, and you should always double check against the current format guidelines .  

No. These documents are never available to library users. Permission letters are preserved as administrative documentation and are not made available online.

If copyrighted material belonging to others is used in your dissertation or thesis, or is part of your supplementary materials, you must give full credit to the author and publisher of the work in all cases, and obtain permission from the copyright owner for reuse of the material unless you have determined that your use of the work is clearly fair use under US copyright law (17 USC §107). 

For additional information on fair use, see

Stanford Libraries' Copyright & Fair Use page, and the Libraries'  Copyright Considerations resource.

The file limit is 20 permissions documents (in PDF format). If there are more, it is advised that you combine all permissions letters into a single PDF file for upload.

No. You must complete the 5 required steps in the Dissertation & Thesis Center in Axess before you can upload your dissertation electronically. These 5 required steps are:

• Apply to Graduate online through Axess by the appropriate deadline.
• Confirm the names of all reading committee members in Axess, and designate a Final Reader.
• Submit signature page documents through the Student eForms portal in Axess.
• Confirm your candidacy is valid through your degree conferral date.
• Confirm completion of all required university Milestones .
• Complete the Copyright and Publication Review

Do not include a copyright page ii and signature page iii in the PDF you upload in Axess. A copyright page and augmented signature page that is unique to your dissertation or thesis record will be automatically included after you have submitted in Axess. These automatically inserted pages will be numbered pages ii and iii. 

If you inadvertently include a page ii and iii in your dissertation or thesis, you will end up with duplicates, which is the most common formatting error.

There are no exceptions to the posted dissertation and thesis deadlines . If you are unable to make the posted dissertation/thesis deadline, you may submit the following quarter, as early as the first day of instruction.

You would need to reapply to graduate in Axess (for the following quarter) and maintain an enrollment status. Please check with your department Student Services Officer, who could further assist in this regard, if necessary.

For your dissertation or thesis, you may use a preferred name, such as on the title page, with the caveat that your primary or legal name appears in the dissertation or thesis copyright page and in the Stanford Libraries’ catalog record detail.

If you designate an embargo period (of 6 months or 1 year) during the initial submission and later wish to either extend their original embargo setting (to 1 year or 2 years from the time of submission), you should submit a Service Support Request to the Office of the University Registrar no later than four weeks before their original embargo selection expires.

Disseration Defense Schedule

PhD Dissertation Defense

Dissertation Defense - David Pickel

The Department of Classics at Stanford University invites you to attend a public dissertation defense by

                                                                         David Pickel

Malaria is among the most consequential infectious diseases to have ever afflicted humans. In this dissertation I explore malaria’s epidemiology in Roman central Italy. Unlike most studies of ancient malaria which characterize the disease as a singular and sudden disaster, I consider both the context of the disease and the disease as context. My goal is to understand malaria’s everyday interactions with individual Romans and Roman society overall. To this end, I outline a new approach which combines spatial epidemiological theories and methods with close analysis of paleo-environmental data, texts, and material remains to learn how the environment, human practices, and artifacts affected the risk of malaria’s transmission in the past. Emphasis is placed on the interactions between malaria and central Italian villa estates between 200 BCE and 500 CE. Using GIS, I juxtapose newly created malaria transmission risk maps and a geodatabase of villa estates. This juxtaposition discloses a tension: growth and activity  despite  malaria’s concurrent presence and naturally high risk of transmission. I then reconcile this tension through analysis of villa estate agricultural practices and artifacts, revealing that the Romans, although unaware of malaria’s specific etiology, very likely incidentally reduced the risk of its transmission by embracing intensive farming practices, attentive local reclamation, and the employment of artifacts that curtailed substantive contact between humans and mosquitoes. This contrasts with most historical narratives that portray malaria as an unmitigable force in pre-modern history.  At the same time, this analysis indicates that malaria’s entrenchment within central Italy, lasting until its elimination in the middle twentieth century, was in part a consequence of the breakdown of those very same artifacts and practices which, for a time, curtailed its transmission. This, I argue, helps to explain the growth and abatement of the region.

PhD Defense

Dissertation defense "prepare for an outbreak: environmental surveillance as a disease monitoring tool, and interventions to prevent viral transmission" by winnie lourdes zambrana orozco, dissertation defense "amplifying the poverty-alleviation impacts of water infrastructure investments in sub-saharan africa" by christine j. pu, dissertation defense "wastewater-based surveillance: examining the decay and partition of viral markers in wastewater" by laura roldan hernandez.

Dissertation Defense

Past events.

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Cordelia Erickson-Davis Dissertation Defense

Pablo S. Delaporte Dissertation Defense

Nataya Friedan Dissertation Defense

Koji Lau-Ozawa Dissertation Defense

Aaron Neiman

Kimberley Connor

Torin Jones

Techno-mediated safety: social atomization and the growth of residential security in recessionary japan, the prince of monaco gave me a present: an ethnographic examination of the governance and social world of the international olympic committee.

PHYSICS DISSERTATION DEFENSE: Shangnan Zhou

When built, the MAGIS-100 atom interferometer will be the largest in the world. But it's still missing a key component: a detailed camera.   Stanford University

Ph.D. Candidate:  Shangnan Zhou Research Co-Advisors:  Patrick Hayden, Stephen Shenker, Leonard Susskind Date: November 23rd, 2022 Time: 2 PM

Zoom Link: https://stanford.zoom.us/j/93731284622

Zoom Password: Email nickswan [at] stanford.edu (nickswan[at]stanford[dot]edu) for password

Title:  New Era of Quantum Machine Learning Abstract:  Quantum computing technology takes advantage of the unique properties of quantum states to perform calculations. Quantum machine learning integrates quantum technology to machine learning, which promises to tackle persistent challenges such as the lack of labeled training data, and the limit of computational power. Quantum machine learning is also naturally better at recognizing underlying quantum data patterns. As the world is intrinsically quantum, this sheds lights on many fields of science and engineering.

In this talk, I will present two milestones from my recent works. First, I showcase a general protocol for systematically designing machine learning algorithms that provide quantum speed-ups for classical learning tasks. Second, I propose a new quantum information quantity, the quantum cross entropy. I will exhibit its significance in quantum data compression, quantum communication, and quantum machine learning. I will conclude with my long-term vision for quantum machine learning.

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Is Moscow Really Tilting to Defense?

By Frank C. Carlucci

• May 6, 1988

How sincere is the Soviet Union about devising a new military doctrine that emphasizes defense and what its officials call a ''reasonable sufficiency'' of forces? After my recent meeting with the Defense Minister, Gen. Dmitri T. Yazov, I came away convinced that, while there remains a wide gap between reality and rhetoric, Soviet officials are at least talking intently about such a change.

Moscow still seems to take a very expansive view of military ''sufficiency,'' and shows no inclination to reduce its forces except in mutual arms agreements. Before the United States could begin to consider relaxing its defense posture, there would have to be hard evidence of a change in the offensive character of Soviet forces and a willingness to make unilateral reductions to bring those forces into parity with the West's.

This is not to say that nothing was accomplished in our discussion. Simply holding such a meeting - the first between the chief American and Soviet military officials in the postwar era - set an important precedent and helped us each better understand the other's point of view. But the talks produced no concrete proof of any change in doctrine.

Yet, without promising any major adjustments in Soviet forces and military spending in the near future, General Yazov clearly suggested that a defensive doctrine was being implemented and that changes in forces would become evident.

I pointed out to General Yazov that Soviet military spending, according to our best estimates, is still growing by about 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation, while the United States defense budget has declined by 11 percent in real terms over the last four years. I added that the assessment of a former Secretary of Defense, Harold Brown, still seemed to hold true: When we build, the Soviet Union builds; when we stop, the Soviet Union continues to build.

If Moscow truly wants to move to a defensive posture, it could take several steps without risking its own security, including the following:

* Eliminating the Warsaw Pact's numerical superiority over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in tanks, artillery and other offensive arms.

The Soviet bloc has an especially threatening advantage in forces that could be used to invade, seize and hold territory in Western Europe. For this, weapons inventories far exceed legitimate defense needs.

* Withdrawing airborne and airmobile forces from Europe and dramatically reducing the relatively large numbers of airborne forces maintained in the Soviet Union.

Airborne and airmobile forces reflect the offensive character of Soviet military power. In East Germany alone, the Soviet Union has nearly enough units to organize an entire airborne division. Such a division could be reinforced rapidly by numerous similar brigades and battalions stationed elsewhere in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, or be supported by the seven other fully-manned Soviet airborne divisions.

* Reducing other offense-oriented capabilities, such as large and growing stockpiles of military materiel deployed in forward areas, extensive bridge-building equipment and engineering units in Eastern Europe and the continuing upgrading of army reserve divisions to active status in the Warsaw Pact. All of this strengthens Moscow's ability to invade the NATO countries.

* Joining the United States in reducing long-range nuclear forces through a strategic arms reduction treaty and in increasing the contribution of effective strategic defenses against ballistic missile attack.

The Soviet Union continues to maintain large numbers of silo-based, first-strike intercontinental ballistic missiles. Soviet willingness to join us in shifting away from offensive nuclear forces, and toward a greater reliance on strategic defense, would contribute to our mutual security and to a safer world in general.

The United States remains eager to see any signs of actions like these that would prove that Soviet military doctrine has changed. Meanwhile, we consider the dialogue on military affairs to be useful, and we intend to continue it.

The Soviet Union has known its share of wartime suffering, and no one begrudges it a military that maintains Soviet national security. But Moscow can insure its security without the aggressive doctrine and offensive posture it now maintains. So far, we have heard only Soviet claims about a shift in doctrine. We still await hard evidence.

Frank C. Carlucci is Secretary of Defense.

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