Day: July 3, 2015

[Updated 7/14/15]

As a doctoral student conducting research, I will work under the supervision of a faculty member at Northeastern University who possesses a relevant  doctorate and experience.

Normally, doctoral candidate supervisors–sometimes called principal investigators– are selected by the one of the program chairs. I, of course, have to be different.  I want to control my own fate, at least to the extent possible in academia.

Given the nature of my proposed project, which will be heavy on stats and math, plus interview and survey techniques, I have approached a professor at NEU who has all of the requisite credentials to serve as my PI/supervisor.   I already know him from the first year of doctoral program, and also know of his very supportive supervision style from a previous Cohort member (now a LP.D) who had the same supervisor a few years ago.

The professor has agreed to supervise me, subject to confirmation by the program chair.  I put in that request yesterday.  We’ll see if I get my first (and only) choice for my supervisor.

I’m still working on securing my required second reader, but I have a couple of strong candidates identified.  I’ll reach out right after the holiday weekend.

[Updated 7/14/15] I now have a Principal Investigator and second reader assigned to me.  The PI is not the person I suggested to the thesis chair, but he is someone of great intellectual and academic strength experienced with hedonic price modeling.  My second reader is exactly the person I hoped would guide me.  He’s a Ph.D and attorney, and his humor matches mine for dryness.