PhD Programs

The UT Austin|Portugal Program offers doctoral degrees in Mathematics through several Portuguese universities. The Mathematics program includes the opportunity to seek a dual PhD degree from UT Austin as well.


Digital Media PhD Program

The four-year Digital Media degree program at U.Porto and UNL, which began officially in fall 2009, was designed with a multidisciplinary structure supporting four specializations:

  1. Production of Audiovisual and Interactive Content,
  2. Technology,
  3. Journalism, and
  4. Industry, Publics, and Markets.

Students are co-supervised by professors in Portugal and Austin, and the program includes a research fellowship in Texas.

The program entails a full year of organized courses, including theoretical, methodological and laboratory-based work.  Roughly in the middle of the second year, students present their dissertation research ideas, with the intention of spending their remaining two years working on their original research. Students seek co-supervisors from among the UT Austin faculty, and they may spend a fellowship year in Austin. UT faculty contribute several courses each semester both by co-teaching and by offering stand-alone classes.

For more information, see:


Mathematics PhD Program 

The CoLab Ph.D. Program in Mathematics is a cooperative Ph.D. program among the Mathematics Departments of the three Lisbon public universities (Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa and Universidade Nova de Lisboa), supported by the University of Texas at Austin. 

Students in the program are eligible to apply to UT Austin for a dual degree (see below).

There is a long history of scientific interaction between the Department of Mathematics at UT Austin and Portuguese universities namely in the areas of applied mathematics and partial differential equations. Furthermore, both UT Austin and the involved Portuguese universities have strong and complimentary groups in geometry and topology providing the framework for strong intellectual cooperation to promote high quality scientific collaborations and research. Collaborations also include other areas such as mathematical finance and algebra. 

For more information, please contact the responsible faculty at participating Portuguese institutions: Rui Loja Fernandes and Diogo Gomes (IST); Luisa Mascarenhas and Luís Trabucho (FCT-UNL); José Francisco Rodrigues and Jean-Claude Zambrini (FC-UL).


Dual degrees

A student in the Mathematics PhD program (or an Advanced Computing PhD student at one of our partner universities) may also seek a dual PhD with UT Austin.  The “dual” doctoral degree plan is basically two degrees.  The student must apply to and be accepted by both the Portuguese and UT Austin degree programs and must complete the degree requirements of both institutions. 

Specific UT requirements vary according to Department, School or College.  Typically they include spending two years in residence, completing comprehensive exams and required coursework, and writing a dissertation.  Some course waivers or substitutions are possible on a petition basis.

The student's dissertation committee may include Portuguese professors (three members must be from the UT home department or program, and committees at UT are typically five members), and it must be defended in the normal UT fashion (i.e., an oral defense). 

If the Portuguese academic program decides to accept the UT dissertation as sufficient to fulfill its degree requirements, then the student would write only one dissertation, but obtain degrees from both institutions.

For more information on dual degrees, please contact:

See also information on Applying to UT Austin PhD Programs.