Requirements for the Ph.D. in Machine Learning
Students enrolled in the Machine Learning Ph.D. program must fulfill the requirements outlined below to earn their degree.
- Complete the courses:
Students joining Fall 2025, complete the new course requirements
Students joining prior to Fall 2025, complete the previous course requirements - Master the proficiencies necessary for teaching and speaking skills.
- Successfully defend a Ph.D. thesis.
Teaching
Ph.D. students are required to serve as teaching assistants for two semesters in machine learning courses (10-xxx), beginning in their second year. This fulfills their teaching skills requirement.
PhD Skills Requirements
Speaking Skills Requirement
In order to satisfy the Speaking Skills requirement, students must give a successful 20 minute talk in the Speaking Skills course (10-905). The first week of class will be a presentation on what constitutes a good talk, given by the instructor. All second year students are expected to take the course in the fall of their second year, this is in addition to any students who have yet to complete this requirement. To fulfill the speaking skills requirement, students must attend the course (missing a maximum of one class) and successfully pass the speaking talk.
Writing Skills Requirement
In order to satisfy the Writing Skills requirement, the student must be the first author on a paper. The quality of the paper must be such that if submitted to a major conference or journal it has the possibility of acceptance. It doesn't have to actually be submitted. The student must have a Review Committee of two reviewers: one faculty member from Carnegie Mellon (it may be the faculty adviser) and one Ph.D. student who is not a paper co-author. If the faculty reviewer is a co-author, they must explicitly indicate the student’s contribution to the writing. The Review Committee fills out the writing skills review form and must unanimously approve the paper to satisfy the requirement. If the student fails, the evaluators provide guidance on necessary revisions and the student tries again.
A machine learning Ph.D. student may waive the writing skill requirement if the student already has a first author paper accepted at a top ML conference/journal, since these papers already went through peer review. Accepted conferences: AISTATS, AAAI, COLT, ICML, KDD, NeurIPS, etc. Journals: JMLR. To waive the Writing Skills requirement based on this criterion, fill out the writing skills waiver form and send to your program coordinator.
Research
All Ph.D. students are expected to engage in active research from their first semester. Moreover, adviser selection occurs within one month of entering the Ph.D. program, with the option to change at a later time. Roughly half of a student's time should be allocated to research and lab work, and half to courses until those are completed.
You may also earn a Master of Science in Machine Learning Research on the way to your Ph.D.
Other Requirements
Students must follow all university policies and procedures.
Rules for the MLD Ph.D. Thesis Committee
(applicable to all ML Ph.D. students)
The committee should be assembled by the student and their adviser, and approved by the Ph.D. Program Director(s). It must include:
- At least one MLD core faculty member.
- At least one additional MLD core or affiliated faculty member.
- At least one external member (usually meaning external to CMU).
- A total of at least four members, including the adviser (who is the committee chair).