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IST: A Doctoral Degree for an Information-driven World

The goal of the IST doctoral program is to produce top professionals leading research at the forefront of information sciences and technology. We accomplish this by offering our Ph.D. students countless opportunities for research, a personalized curriculum, and a wide array of resources.

Boundless Opportunities

This age of information explosion and rapidly increasing accessibility is producing exciting opportunities for research in areas such as Web science, rational network science, extreme events systems science, X-informatics, global self-awareness, and change in the culture of work and education.

Flexible Curriculum

The curriculum of the IST doctoral program is flexible and can be tailored to fit your research interests. We offer five tracks of study, chosen for strategic relevance to emerging issues:
  • Computational Informatics
  • Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science
  • Human Computer Interaction
  • Social and Enterprise Informatics
  • Security Informatics
Small Community, Great Resources

IST offers both the close-knit community of a small college and the wide array of opportunities and resources of Penn State, which is ranked among the top research universities worldwide. State College, the community that surrounds Penn State, is an idyllic small city that supports diversity, culture, and the arts.

 


Alumni Making an Impact

Alumni of IST’s doctoral programs are emerging to become thought leaders in the academic world and in leading corporate and government laboratories. Among our recent graduates are tenure-track assistant professors at Computer Science Department of Harvard University and at the School of Informatics at Indiana University. Others are joining well-known organizations such as the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), GE Research, Bloomberg, IBM, Yahoo! Research, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, SA Technologies, Milken Institute, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.