A student's thesis research may be carried out under the direction of any member of the program faculty. Research topics may therefore be chosen from a wide range of subjects in combinatorics, complexity and the analysis of algorithms, and combinatorial optimization.
The dissertation and final doctoral examination must meet the usual criteria of the Institute and the additional ACO requirements described below. Dissertation advisory committees and doctoral examination committees must include at least one faculty member with full-time appointment in the student's home department and at least one faculty member with full-time appointment in the other unit(s) participating in the program.
Each ACO thesis must be available for public viewing at least one month prior to the scheduled defense. An ACO thesis should include results that in the judgment of the dissertation committee are publishable in top specialized journals in the corresponding field. For each ACO thesis a recognized expert in the field (other than the advisor or coadvisors, if any) must be designated as "reader". The reader may or may not be from Georgia Tech, and may or may not be a member of the thesis committee. A report from the reader must be available to the thesis committee and the ACO Director at least 48 hours prior to the defense. The reader's report should comment on the main research contributions, readability and publishability of the results.
Guidelines on joint authorship of thesis work. All joint work included in a thesis must be properly credited. This is especially important in case of student coauthors. While students should feel encouraged to collaborate, faculty advisors should ensure
that if a substantial part of thesis work is joint with another student(s), then the author of the thesis played a leadership role
in the research.
Every member of the dissertation committee will be asked to fill out an assessment rubric.
Current students should consult the FAQ page for more information. Past dissertations are available.
