Applicable only to students admitted during the 2021-2022 academic year.

Environmental Health Sciences

School of Public Health

Graduate Degrees

The Department of Environmental Health Sciences offers the Master of Science (M.S.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in Environmental Health Sciences.

Admissions Requirements

Master’s Degree

Advising

A faculty academic advisor is appointed for each new master’s student by the department chair. The student and advisor together agree upon a study list for each academic quarter and any subsequent alterations must be approved by the student’s advisor. Students are expected to meet with their advisor at least each quarter.

The faculty adviser is responsible for monitoring the student’s academic progress. Progress is evaluated on an ongoing basis. At the end of each quarter, the Associate Dean of Student Affairs reviews academic listings of students and notifies them and the advisers when the cumulative grade-point average is below 3.0. Advisers review each case with their advisees and make recommendations to the Associate Dean of Student Affairs for continuance or academic disqualification. Students who wish to change advisers must file a petition which must be approved by the old adviser, the new adviser, the department chair, and the Associate Dean for Student Affairs.

Areas of Study

Students may choose from: air, ecology, economics, exposure assessment, industrial hygiene, toxicology, and water. For students that focus on industrial hygiene, there is a specific curriculum because there is a federal training grant in this area: https://ehs.ph.ucla.edu/pages/industrial_hygiene.

Foreign Language Requirement

None.

Course Requirements

Master’s students must also complete at least four quarters in residence at the University of California, including at least two quarters in residence at UCLA, and 17 courses (65 units) of which at least six (28 units) must be graduate courses in the 200 or 500 series. Only one Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) 596 course (four units) and one EHS 598 course (four units) count toward the total course and minimum graduate unit requirements. EHS 597 is not eligible for degree requirements. Upon petition to Graduate Division, courses completed at other UCs may fulfill up to one-half of the total course requirement, one-half of the graduate course requirement, and one-third of the academic residence requirement.

There are 10 mandatory core courses (38 units): Biostatistics 100A, 100B, Epidemiology 100, EHS C200A, C200C, 200D, C240, C257, M411 (to be taken once a year for two years), and either EHS 596 (for the comprehensive examination/report plan) or EHS 598 (for the thesis plan).

Students must also successfully complete a written examination in Chemistry when they enter the program, or else they will be required to take EHS 101. In addition, they must take one advanced laboratory course (3 or more units) on a topic in or related to environmental health sciences, such as EHS 207, 410B, M166L, Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics 100L, or Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology 104AL. The advanced laboratory course may be waived with the faculty advisor’s and Department Chair’s consents if the student has previous lab experience. Students who request to waive the advanced laboratory course are required to submit a blue petition indicating the request to waive the advanced laboratory course because of previous lab experience and make up the four units with an additional elective course. A mandatory core course may be waived if the student either has taken a similar university-level course elsewhere and/or passes a waiver examination. If a core course is waived, the student should make up the units with a substitute course that should be selected in consultation with the graduate advisor.

In addition to the core courses, at least 20 units of upper division (200 level) or grad level (400 level) elective courses are required and should be selected in consultation with the graduate adviser. 296, 596, 597, 598, or 599 courses may not be counted towards the elective requirement.

Students interested in Industrial Hygiene may choose to complete an additional 13 elective courses (46-50 units) that prepare them to enter the workforce and may assist in becoming a Certified Industrial Hygienists (see http://abih.org/). These additional courses allow industrial hygiene students in the Environmental Health Sciences department to receive additional training on occupational exposure to chemicals; physical, biological, and mechanical agents; psychosocial factors, and ergonomic factors. Identification/recognition/anticipation, evaluation, control and prevention of hazards and risks are the primary goals. These required courses are (two units each): EHS 230A, 230B, 230C and (four units each): EHS 252D, 252E, 253, 255, 259A, 259B, 410A, 454. EHS 252G is required if no field sampling has been done by Spring quarter of 2nd year. An additional four-unit course from a list of electives is required. U.S. citizens (or Green Card holders) applicants may qualify for fees and stipend support from the NIOSH Southern California Education and Research Center (http://erc.ucla.edu/industrial-hygiene/). If you have questions, please contact the IH Director, Professor Shane Que Hee at squehee@ucla.edu.

Students who have not previously completed a Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH)-accredited degree (bachelor, master or doctoral degree) are required to complete Public Health C201: Contemporary Health Issues.

Only courses in which a grade of C or better is received may be applied toward the requirements for a master’s degree.

Teaching Experience

Not required.

Field Experience

Not required.

Capstone Plan

The comprehensive examination and report option (Plan II) consists of two elements, (1) an examination and (2) a M.S. report. If the student selects the comprehensive examination and report option (Plan II), the candidate must pass a comprehensive examination on the major area of study. This examination is prepared by a committee of at least three faculty members. If the examination is failed, the student may be reexamined once. In addition, the student must complete a research activity while enrolled in Environmental Health Sciences 596 for at least four units. For the M.S. report, the student must either prepare an in-depth written report on this research activity, or submit an article of publishable quality (e.g. externally peer-reviewed journal article or book chapter) that was completed while a student. Either report option must be approved by the full committee.

Thesis Plan 

Every master’s degree thesis plan requires the completion of an approved thesis that demonstrates the student’s ability to perform original, independent research.

If the student selects the thesis option (Plan I), a thesis committee of three faculty members is established. The committee approves the thesis before the student graduates. An article of publishable quality (e.g. externally peer-reviewed journal article or book chapter) may be submitted as the thesis, with appropriate format modification.

Time-to-Degree

Normative time-to-degree from initial enrollment to graduation is six quarters.

DEGREE	NORMATIVE TIME TO ATC (Quarters)	NORMATIVE TTD	MAXIMUM TTD
M.S.	6	6	15

Doctoral Degree

Advising

An academic adviser is assigned to each new student by the head of the department. Student and adviser together agree upon a study list for each academic quarter within the parameters set forth below; any subsequent alterations must be approved both by the adviser and the department chair. During the first year students must set up a two-member guidance committee that includes the academic adviser. One of these members may be from outside the department. The student’s guidance committee is responsible for making course recommendations. Students also must file Doctoral Form 1, which establishes their guidance committee and proposed course of study, by the end of the third quarter of doctoral study.

Major Fields or Subdisciplines

Students may choose to concentrate on any field of environmental health sciences. Such areas of academic focus may include: air quality; environmental biology; environmental chemistry; environmental health practice and policy; occupational health including industrial hygiene; toxicology; or water quality. Interdisciplinary research is also recommended.

Foreign Language Requirement

None.

Course Requirements

Students select a course of study upon consultation with their guidance committee. The following courses are required: Environmental Health Sciences 200C; Environmental Health Sciences 411 (to be taken once a year for two years); Environmental Health Sciences 414A and 414B; and one full course (four units or more) at the 100 or 200 level in epidemiology; and the appropriate Environmental Health Sciences 296 course for each quarter in residence. Also, proficiency in biostatistics/statistics is required. Each specific, required, letter-graded course may be waived if the student successfully completed an equivalent course with a grade of B or better.

Students who have not previously completed a Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH)-accredited degree (bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree) are required to complete Public Health 201: Contemporary Health Issues.

For students who do not have an undergraduate or graduate degree in the field of public health, the following additional courses are recommended: two full courses in biostatistics/statistics.

Teaching Experience

Teaching experience is recommended but not required for the doctoral degree.

Written and Oral Qualifying Examinations

Academic Senate regulations require all doctoral students to complete and pass university written and oral qualifying examinations prior to doctoral advancement to candidacy. Also, under Senate regulations, the University Oral Qualifying Examination is open only to the student and appointed members of the doctoral committee. In addition to university requirements, some graduate programs have other pre-candidacy examination requirements. What follows in this section is how students are required to fulfill all of these requirements for this doctoral program.

All committee nominations and reconstitutions adhere to the Minimum Standards for Doctoral Committee Constitution.

Before advancement to candidacy, students must complete the courses required for the doctoral degree (see Course Requirements). Students must also pass a written examination in the area of specialization. The format of the Exam is decided by the Advisor and by the Guidance Committee that administers and evaluates the Examination. The student should discuss the format of the exam with the student’s Advisor, but some commonly used formats are described below. Although these examples illustrate the range of approaches that can be taken for the written exam, other approaches are possible. The student should confirm with the student’s Advisor the particular format of the student’s exam.

Example 1: Critical evaluation of a scientific paper.
The student is given a set of 5 papers for study two weeks before the exam. The papers are chosen to be generally related to the student’s Ph.D. research topic, but typically emphasize a broader set of knowledge (perhaps with particular reference to the environmental health sciences curriculum). The papers are chosen by and agreed upon by the entire Guidance Committee. The student must answer a set of questions about one of the papers; the questions are given to the student beforehand so the student can plan how to answer the questions for each paper.

One paper to be used in the exam will be chosen by the committee in advance but not known to the student until the day of the exam. The exam is done on campus for three hours (in isolation, without access to any documents; a laptop computer can be provided so the answers can be typed as long as the computer does not have internet access or any relevant documents on it).

Example 2: Preparation of a research proposal.
The student completes a research proposal on the dissertation research topic. The proposal should be written in the format of NIH, NSF, or another funding agency, as determined by the student’s Advisor and Guidance Committee.

Example 3: Questions and a research proposal.
A first section of the exam consists of answering questions about the general research area. The goal of this section of the exam is to determine if the student possesses the necessary knowledge about the major field. The questions are determined by the Advisor and Guidance Committee.

A second section of the exam consists of a research proposal on a hypothesis related to the student’s research area. The goal of this section is to demonstrate that the student can write a NIH/NSF/EPA research grant. The format of the proposal is determined by the Advisor and Guidance Committee.Students must also pass the University Oral Qualifying Examination no later than the end of their ninth quarter.

The three possible outcomes of each examination are Pass, Retake, and Fail. Normally, no more than one reexamination is allowed. A doctoral committee, consisting of at least four faculty members who hold professorial appointments at UCLA, is nominated when the student is ready to take the University Oral Qualifying Examination. Students should review the current regulations governing doctoral committee membership in Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study at UCLA.

After passing the University Oral Qualifying Examination, the student advances to candidacy and finishes work on a dissertation in the principal field of study. The doctoral committee supervises the student’s progress toward completion of the dissertation.

Advancement to Candidacy

Students are advanced to candidacy upon successful completion of the written and oral qualifying examinations.

Doctoral Dissertation

Every doctoral degree program requires the completion of an approved dissertation that demonstrates the student’s ability to perform original, independent research and constitutes a distinct contribution to knowledge in the principal field of study.

Final Oral Examination (Defense of the Dissertation)

Required for all students in the program.

Time-to-Degree

Normative time from initial enrollment to advancement to candidacy is nine quarters (three calendar years), and from advancement to candidacy to filing of dissertation is nine quarters (three calendar years).

DEGREE	NORMATIVE TIME TO ATC (Quarters)	NORMATIVE TTD	MAXIMUM TTD
Ph.D.	9	18	24

Academic Disqualification and Appeal of Disqualification

University Policy

A student who fails to meet the above requirements may be recommended for academic disqualification from graduate study. A graduate student may be disqualified from continuing in the graduate program for a variety of reasons. The most common is failure to maintain the minimum cumulative grade point average (3.00) required by the Academic Senate to remain in good standing (some programs require a higher grade point average). Other examples include failure of examinations, lack of timely progress toward the degree and poor performance in core courses. Probationary students (those with cumulative grade point averages below 3.00) are subject to immediate dismissal upon the recommendation of their department. University guidelines governing academic disqualification of graduate students, including the appeal procedure, are outlined in Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study at UCLA.

Special Departmental or Program Policy

Master’s

In addition to the standard reasons outlined above, a student may be recommended for academic disqualification for failure to complete the required course work within seven quarters of matriculation, one quarter beyond normative time to advance to master’s candidacy.

Doctoral

In addition to the standard reasons outlined above, a student may be recommended for academic disqualification for: failure to maintain a 3.00 grade point average for two consecutive quarters following matriculation into the doctoral program; a second failure in the written qualifying examination; a second failure of either the oral qualifying examination or the final oral examination; or exceeding enrollment time limits.

A student may appeal a recommendation for academic disqualification first to the department Chair, then to the Associate Dean of Student Affairs, then to the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, and finally to the Dean of the school.