Become the World’s Expert
Whether you plan to work inside or outside of academia, the world needs more experts with both the specialized knowledge and broad skillset to push the boundaries of what we know and what we can do.
As a PhD candidate you’ll become the expert in your field. Collaborating with outstanding faculty mentors, you’ll learn to contest groupthink, question received knowledge, and defend truth with facts. You’ll lead the future of inquiry and become our guide to the world — and the most interesting person at every party.
Earning a PhD means that you have discovered or created something entirely new. It also means that you have developed a unique and in-demand set of skills: you’re more than an expert in a given field — you’re a highly trained problem-solver.

The Road Less Travelled
Explore PhD programs and specializations, graduate resources, and funding opportunities at USC Dornsife.
PhD Academy
Through the first-of-its-kind PhD Academy, you’ll have the chance to participate in a 5-year curriculum built around practical skills — leadership principles, financial management, public speaking, and communicating your scholarship to the public, and more — which give you a competitive edge in any career path you choose.
PhD Student News
Curiosity at Work
Relaunched anthropology PhD program trains next generation
The rebooted program has been redesigned for the 21st century, emphasizing topics with socially relevant applications like medical and visual anthropology.
Paleobiologist David Bottjer and PhD student Alison Cribb uncover more evidence behind history’s largest mass extinction
The team discovered ancient clues on the seafloor that show how life bounced back after 90% of species died off.
A First-Generation chemistry PhD student wants to use science to change the world
The polluted river that separates his family is the same river that inspired Juan Pablo de los Rios to pursue a career in science.
Ancient lizards give clues as to how we might survive mass extinction
Paleontology PhD student Hank Woolley is digging into our warmer past to help us understand how we might survive climate change.
Articles written by faculty, postdocs, and PhD students for The Conversation garner more than 10 Million reads
Reaching a global audience through hundreds of media outlets, the achievement demonstrates USC Dornsife’s commitment to bringing academic expertise into the public square.

Mentorship at the Core
Every relationship between a mentor and mentee is unique and meaningful. Here, Professor Jan Amend and his PhD student Heidi Aronson share thoughts about their experiences.
Jan Amend, Professor of Earth Sciences and Biological Sciences:
As a graduate student and postdoc, I was mentored by several extraordinary scientists. All of them helped me grow as a scientist, and I’m sure that I subconsciously picked up mentoring skills along the way. My PhD advisor’s mentoring style worked for me as a student, but I could not and would not want to adopt it as my approach to working with students. The same applies to my post-doc advisors.
Heidi Aronson, PhD Candidate in Marine Biology and Biological Oceanography:
We knew that the search for sulfur comproportionators would be a high-risk, high-reward project, but Jan encouraged me to take on the challenge. Jan gave me the independence to pursue my thesis project in whichever directions I was interested. Although his somewhat “hands-off” approach was initially daunting, it allowed me to really take ownership of my work and ensure that I had accounted for all of the risks and potential outcomes with each step of the project.
Jan Amend:
Heidi’s project, at least half of it, started 20 years before she ever came to USC, when I was doing field work on Vulcano, Aeolian Islands, Italy. A new nitrogen metabolism, later termed anammox, had been proposed and then verified to be carried out by microorganisms. In anammox, microbes combine oxidized and reduced forms of N to produce an intermediate form – the chemical term for this type of reaction is comproportionation. I thought that if this could happen with nitrogen, why not with sulfur? On Vulcano, you can smell the sulfide (reduced form of S) and since it is a marine environment, there is plenty of sulfate around (oxidized form of S); there are also precipitates of elemental sulfur (the intermediate form). I thought there was a project in this somewhere, proposing a new metabolism and then hunting for the organisms that could live off this predicted new energy source.
I pitched this idea to Heidi and she ran with it. The germ of the idea was mine, but this absolutely became Heidi’s project.
Heidi Aronson:
Because this was an interdisciplinary project that would involve thermodynamic calculations, field research, geochemistry, microbial cultivation, isotopic analyses, and analytical chemistry, it was necessary for me to build a network of collaborators and mentors. Jan encouraged me to include collaborators from Penn State, New Mexico Tech, Stanford University, Caltech, the French National Centre for Scientific Research and USC. Each of my collaborators brought something different to the table and was crucial to the success of my thesis project.
We ultimately decided to being our search in sulfidic caves at Frasassi, Italy, in collaboration with Dr. Jenn Macalady at Penn State University. After a successful field expedition at Frasassi, I made Jenn my co-advisor for my thesis. Jenn provided a different style of mentorship – because Frasassi has been her research site for almost two decades, she was able to engage in detailed conversations about sample sites, sample collection techniques, lab analyses, and specific microbes that are known to inhabit the caves. While still providing me with direction and advice, Jenn gave me the freedom to decide which analyses to perform and which steps to take next.
Jan Amend:
Because grad school can be frustrating and challenging and lonely, it is important in my view that the students LOVE their projects. When things don’t go well, the love for the project will get them over the hurdles – and there are many. That’s why I don’t assign projects; the student has to feel real ownership of the project. I certainly suggest ideas and iterate with a student on project development, but it is the student’s project – they will be first author on publications!
Heidi Aronson:
The freedom that Jan gave me in my research allowed me to be creative and explore several different projects. I gained lots of experience writing grant proposals and personally raised over $200,000 to fund most of my PhD research. This independence was crucial to my development as a scientist and later informed how I approached mentoring my own students. I aimed to give my mentees a sense of ownership of their research and allowed them to pursue the questions that interested them, while still guiding them through any that they encountered.
Life in L.A.
When you come to USC, you come to Los Angeles. Anything and everything is possible here.

Rather than thinking of yourself as a cognitive psychologist or a biochemist or a medieval scholar, think of yourself as a highly trained problem solver. Think about the issues you care about and the ideas you want to explore. Think about the values you stand for.

Contact Us
Office of Graduate Admission
3551 Trousdale Pkwy., ADM 304
Los Angeles, CA 90089-4012