Degrees Offered
What are Future Cities?
The Future Cities track targets innovative ideas and technologies to advance current built environment and to build new livable space for next generations. Future worlds will be dramatically different from today. The American Society of Civil Engineers’ Future World Vision has categorized several future cities such as the Mega City, a city of 50 million people; Floating City, an offshore city as sea levels rise; Rural City, self-sufficient agricultural communities; Frozen City, cities in the Arctic region due to climate change; and Off-planet City, Lunar/Martian habitats.
Roles and challenges that civil engineers take toward those future cities are unprecedented and must be interdisciplinary within areas in civil-environmental engineering and cross/trans-disciplinary supported by other fields.
Examples of research areas in this track include, but not limited to, smart transportation, integrated urban infrastructure, innovative construction materials, structures/materials with environment, green materials/buildings, energy and environment, innovative design and construction, smart water and waste management, etc. Courses for this track should be designed by the Ph.D. committee and the student to best benefit the specific doctoral research topic.
Degree Information
Students can earn a Ph.D. degree in civil engineering in the Future Cities track.
Doctor of Philosophy
The Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree is a research-oriented degree requiring a minimum of 64 semester credit hours of approved courses and research beyond the Master of Science (M.S.) degree [96 credit hours beyond the Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree]. The university places limitations on these credit hours in addition to the requirements of the Department of Civil Engineering.
A complete discussion of all university requirements is found in the current Texas A&M University Graduate Catalog