ErSE MS students must choose one of the available tracks. Students in the Geophysical Fluids and Climate System Science track study flow and transport processes both beneath and above the Earth's surface, including ocean and atmospheric circulation, flows in subsurface porous media, transport of dust and anthropogenic pollutants in atmosphere and ocean, and their effect on climate. Students in the Geophysics track focus on seismology, geophysics, geodynamics and geomechanics. The Geology track focuses on (carbonate) sedimentology and stratigraphy, petrology/geochemistry and structural geology. The Machine Learning in Geosciences track equips graduate students with the fundamentals of machine learning (ML) methods and their applications to geoscience problems.
The Master of Science (MS) degree comprises Thesis and non-Thesis options. It is awarded upon successful completion of a minimum of 36 credit hours. A minimum GPA of 3.0 must be achieved to graduate. Individual courses require a minimum of a B- for course credit.
Students are responsible for planning their graduate program in consultation with their Academic Advisor. Students must meet all deadlines and be aware that most core courses are offered only once per year. Students must complete the MS degree as follows:
Students must complete their Thesis by the end of the fourth Semester (not including Summer Session). Students who require additional time to complete their Thesis must apply for an extension per the time limits and extensions policy.
MS Course Requirements
MS students must complete the following requirements:
- Core Courses (12 credits)
- Elective Courses (12 credits)
- Research/Capstone (12 credits)
- Graduate Seminar (non-credit)
- Winter Enrichment Program (non-credit)
Core and Elective Courses must be technical courses and cannot be substituted with Research, Internship, or Broadening Courses to fulfill degree requirements.
Geophysical Fluids and Climate System Science Track
Core Courses (12 credits)
Students must choose at least four courses. At least two courses must be from the ErSE program and at least one course must be from the AMCS program.
Geophysics Track
Core Courses (12 credits)
Students must choose at least four courses. At least two courses must be from the ErSE program and at least one course must be from the AMCS program.
Elective Courses (12 credits)
Students must choose at least four courses from the following:
| AMCS 312 | High Performance Computing | 3 |
| AMCS 350 | Spectral Methods for Uncertainty Quantification | 3 |
| CE 202 | Advanced Transport Phenomena | 3 |
| CS 207 | Programming Methodology and Abstractions | 3 |
| CS 229 | Machine Learning | 3 |
| ErSE 201 | Geophysical Fluid Dynamics I | 3 |
| ErSE 212 | Geophysical Geodesy and Geodynamics | 3 |
| ErSE 214 | Seismic Exploration | 3 |
| ErSE 217 | Structural Geology | 3 |
| ErSE 218 | Geophysical Field Methods | 3 |
| ErSE 221 | Magmatic Systems | 3 |
| ErSE 222 | Machine Learning in Geoscience | 3 |
| ErSE 260 | Seismic Imaging | 3 |
| ErSE 294 | Contemporary Topics in Earth Science | 3 |
| ErSE 323 | Igneous Geochemistry | 3 |
| ERSE 326 | Computational Geophysics | 3 |
| ErSE 327 | Multiscale Modeling of Geological Reservoirs | 3 |
| ErSE 328 | Advanced Seismic Inversion | 3 |
| ErSE 331 | Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) in Earth Sciences | 3 |
| ErSE 360 | Mathematical Methods for Seismic Imaging | 3 |
| ErSE 394 | Contemporary Topics in Earth Science | 3 |
| ERPE 270/ME 214 | Experimental Methods in Research | 3 |
| ERPE 310 | Sequence Stratigraphy | 3 |
| ERPE 311 | Carbonate Diagenesis | 3 |
| ERPE 315 | Energy Geoscience | 3 |
| ME 305A | Computational Fluid Dynamics | 3 |
| MSE 200 | Mathematics for Material Science and Engineering | 3 |
Geology Track
Core Courses (12 credits)
Students must choose at least four courses from the following:
Elective Courses (12 credits)
Students must choose at least four courses from the following:
Machine Learning in Geosciences Track
Core Courses (12 credits)
Students must choose at least four courses from the following:
Elective Courses (12 credits)
Students must choose at least four courses from the following:
| ErSE 201 | Geophysical Fluid Dynamics I | 3 |
| ErSE 210 | Seismology | 3 |
| ErSE 211 | Global Geophysics | 3 |
| ErSE 214 | Seismic Exploration | 3 |
| ErSE 260 | Seismic Imaging | 3 |
| ErSE 294 | Contemporary Topics in Earth Science | 3 |
| ErSE 301 | Geophysical Fluid Dynamics II | 3 |
| ErSE 303 | Numerical Methods of Geophysics | 3 |
| ErSE 305 | Multiphase Flows in Porous Media | 3 |
| ErSE 328 | Advanced Seismic Inversion | 3 |
| ErSE 331 | Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) in Earth Sciences | 3 |
| ErSE 353 | Data Assimilation | 3 |
| ErSE 360 | Mathematical Methods for Seismic Imaging | 3 |
| ErSE 394 | Contemporary Topics in Earth Science | 3 |
| AMCS 211 | Numerical Optimization | 3 |
| AMCS 241/STAT 250 | Stochastic Processes | 3 |
| AMCS 308 | Stochastic Numerics with Application in Simulation and Data Science | 3 |
| AMCS 312 | High Performance Computing | 3 |
| AMCS 350 | Spectral Methods for Uncertainty Quantification | 3 |
| CS 201 | Introduction to Programming with Python | 3 |
| CS 204 | Data Structures and Algorithms | 3 |
| CS 207 | Programming Methodology and Abstractions | 3 |
| CS 220 | Data Analytics | 3 |
| CS 323 | Deep Learning for Visual Computing | 3 |
| CS 331 | Stochastic Gradient Descent Methods | 3 |
| CS 340 | Computational Methods in Data Mining | 3 |
| CS 341 | Advanced Topics in Data Management | 3 |
| ERPE 221 | Geoscience Fundamentals | 3 |
| ME 200A | Incompressible Flows | 3 |
| MSE 200 | Mathematics for Material Science and Engineering | 3 |
Graduate Seminars (non-credit)
Students must register for ErSE 398 and receive a Satisfactory grade for two Semesters of the program they attend. Students must attend a minimum of 8 Graduate Seminars to receive a Satisfactory (S) grade. The seminars can be chosen from any Graduate Seminar series offered by the PSE division.
Winter Enrichment Program (non-credit)
All students must register for WE 100 and successfully complete one Winter Enrichment Program (WEP), usually taken in the first year of study.
MS Thesis
Students planning to pursue the Thesis option must complete a minimum of 12 credits of Thesis Research (ErSE 297). Students are expected to work weekly a minimum of 3 hours/week per each research credit they are registered for.
Thesis Application
Students must complete the application and have it approved by the Program Chair no later than the end of week one of their third Semester. The form is available on the webpage of the Office of the Registrar.
Students wishing to pursue the Thesis option must have at least a 3.2 cumulative GPA. The selected Academic Advisor must be a full-time program-affiliated Assistant, Associate or full Professor at KAUST. The Faculty not affiliated with ErSE can become project-affiliated for the only specific Thesis project upon program-level approval. Project-affiliation approval must be completed before commencing research.
Students who meet the graduation requirements of the non-thesis track may drop the thesis up until the end of their third Semester. Students not able to complete their thesis after this deadline will face academic dismissal.
Thesis Committee Formation
Students must form the Thesis Committee by the deadline published in the Academic Calendar. The Thesis Defense Committee, which must be approved by the Dean, must consist of at least three members and typically includes no more than four members. At least two of the required members must be KAUST Faculty. The Chair plus one additional Faculty member must be affiliated with the student's program. This membership can be summarized as follows:
| Member |
Role |
Program Status |
| 1 |
Chair |
Within or outside program |
| 2 |
Faculty |
Within program |
| 3 |
Faculty |
Within or outside program |
| 4 |
Faculty or Research Scientist |
Within or outside program |
Notes:
- Members 1, 2, and one of 3 or 4 are required
- Co-chairs may serve as member 2 or 3
- Adjunct Professors and Professors emeriti may retain their roles on current Committees, but may not serve as chair on any new Committees
- Professors of Practice and Research Professors may serve as members 2 or 3 depending upon their affiliation with the student's program, they may also serve as co-chairs
- Visiting Professors may serve as member 3
View a list of Faculty and their affiliations here.
Petition to Defend Thesis
Students must submit a petition to defend their Thesis by the deadline published in the Academic Calendar. Students are responsible for scheduling the Thesis Defense Date. All committee members must attend the Defense.
Thesis Document
Students must follow the Thesis and Dissertation Guidelines available from the KAUST Library when they write their Thesis. Once the Thesis is ready to be examined, students must determine the Defense date with the agreement of all members of the Thesis Committee.
Thesis Defense
The format of the oral defense is left to the discretion of the Thesis Committee. Students defending their Thesis receive an outcome a Pass or Fail. A Pass is achieved when the Committee agrees with no more than one dissenting vote; otherwise, the outcome is a Fail. In the case of a Pass, students must send the Thesis Result Form within 2 days of the Thesis defense to the GPC. In the case of a Fail, the Committee Chair must inform the GPC immediately to take the necessary action. Students must submit the Final Approval Form by the deadline published in the Academic Calendar. The required forms are available on the webpage of the Office of the Registrar.
Thesis Archiving
Students must archive the Thesis in the KAUST Library two weeks from the final result form. This must not exceed the duration of study or the deadline published in the Academic Calendar.
MS Non-Thesis
Students wishing to pursue the non-thesis option must complete a total of 12 capstone credits, with a minimum of 6 credits of Directed Research (ErSE 299). Students must complete the remaining 6 credits through one or a combination of the options listed below:
*Students in the Machine Learning in Geosciences track are strongly encouraged to include a Summer internship at a high-tech company that requires machine learning applications.