All full-time graduate students must enroll, attend, and actively participate in the graduate seminar course (27-774) each semester in which they are registered as full-time students. The goal of the seminar is to broaden each student's doctoral education through exposure to research performed by an international cadre of highly-respected external scientists.

Students are graded according to the following guidelines:

1. The grade for the course is PASS or FAIL.
2. To pass, the only requirement is attendance, with no more than two unexcused absences. Unexcused include doctor’s appointments, vacations, and any other absences that are not research related. Absences resulting from conference trips, visits to research sponsors, etc. are excused, but the seminar coordinator must be notified.
3. Students with more than two unexcused absences are expected to make this up by attending seminars given in other departments or talks by external speakers at the University.

Fall 2023 seminar schedule

All seminars are held on Fridays at 12:00 p.m. in 105 Scaife Hall. 

• September 1- Sandra DeVincent Wolf, Carnegie Mellon University
• September 8 - Olexandr Isayev, Carnegie Mellon University
• September 15 - Tim Rupert, University of California, Irvine
• September 22 - Tao Sun, Northwestern University
• September 29 - Nikhil Admal, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• October 6 - Donna Nelson, University of Oklahoma
• October 13 - Johannes Hachmann, University at Buffalo
• October 20 - Fall break, No Seminar
• October 27 - Ibo Matthews, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• November 3 - John Hart, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• November 10 - Katie Boggs, NASA
• November 17 - Andre Schleife, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• November 24 - Thanksgiving Break, No Seminar
• December 1 - James Chelikowsky, University of Texas at Austin
• December 8 - Cécile A. C. Chazot, Northwestern University

Past seminars

Spring 2023

• January 20 - Arthi Jayaraman, University of Delaware
• January 27 - Amymarie K. Bartholomew, Yale University
• February 3 - Jessica Wade, Imperial College London
• February 10 - In-ho Jung, Seoul National University 
• February 17 - Susan B. Sinnott, Penn State University
• February 24 - Tina Rost, James Madison University
• March 3 -  Fadi Abeljawad, Clemson University
• March 17 - Ariel Ismach, Tel Aviv University
• March 24 - David Dunand, Northwestern University
• March 31 - Flavia Vitale, University of Pennsylvania
• April 7 - Brent Fultz, California Institute of Technology
• April 21 - Eva Zurek, University at Buffalo

Fall 2022

• September 2 - Steve Scott, ALCOA Corp.
• September 9 - Professor Jyoti Katoch, Carnegie Mellon University, Physics
• September 16 - Professor Somnath Ghosh, John Hopkins
• September 23 - Professor Beth Opilia, University of Virginia
• September 30 - Professor Michael Arnold, University of Wisconsin
• October 7 - Professor Jennifer Laaser, University of PIttsburgh
• October 14 - Professor of Nilesh Kumar, University of Alabama
• November 4 - Dr. Ying Diao, University of Illinois
• November 11 - Dr. Tim Gessert, Gessert Consulting
• November 18 - Professor Natan Aronhime, Carpenter Technologies
• December 2 - Professor Dr. -Ing. Katja Windt, SMS Group
• December 9 - Dr. Reeja Jayan, Carnegie Mellon University, MechE/MSE