Program

The Global Urban Studies Ph.D. Program in Urban Systems is the first cross-sectoral doctoral program in the social sciences, humanities, and building sciences to draw upon the combined strengths of New Jersey's two senior public research universities. Students enjoy the rich resources of the partner institutions including faculty, research programs, libraries, and computer facilities. In addition, Newark, a rich, multicultural urban environment, serves as the host community for the program. Northern New Jersey and the Greater Metropolitan Area provide an ideal site in which students may pursue challenging research and career opportunities in urban studies.

The program has a 53-credit curriculum with several major specializations:

With more than half of the world's population living in cities, and urbanization picking up speed in the fastest-growing countries in the world, universities, especially those located in cities, have many important roles to play. One such role is contributing to collaborative problem solving and knowledge production. The complexity of interlocking problems and of multicultural populations requires scholars to take interdisciplinary and diverse social-scientific and humanities-based approaches to research. Students strengthen their academic understanding of the urban environment and capacity for effecting change by acquiring a doctorate in Global Urban Studies, Urban Systems. Students completing the program will have gained deep interdisciplinary knowledge about cities, produced a dissertation built from original research, and will be prepared to work in academic and non-academic settings.