Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
in Occupational Science
The PhD in Occupational Science degree program prepares you to become a career scientist engaged in the study of human occupation — the purposeful activities that constitute our life experiences. Occupational scientists examine the function and structure of occupation, the impact of occupation on individuals and communities, and the interrelationships among the complex array of factors associated with human occupation. We emphasize the development of research skills, and encourage you to organize and synthesize knowledge to contribute to occupational science theory and interdisciplinary understandings of occupation, health, and social participation.
A career scientist conducts independent and or collaborative scientific discovery as part of an identifiable and distinct program of research, engages in effective knowledge mobilization, and is often supported by extramural funding. Within the discipline of occupational science, career scientists engage in these activities across a variety of academic, clinical, community, and industry contexts, and often serve as content experts within collaborative research teams.
USC Chan PhD graduates have:
- Received prestigious post-doctoral research fellowships.
- Obtained tenure-track faculty appointments at R1 designated universities (Doctoral Universities-Highest Research Activity).
- Secured external grant funding from competitive governmental agencies.
- Launched new lines of inquiry through systematic research programs.
- Disseminated their work in peer-reviewed publications and at national and international conference presentations.
- Contributed to theory development in occupational science.
- Informed occupational therapy and related practices through intervention development and basic and translational science research discoveries.
To produce strong career scientists, we believe that it takes full commitment on the part of all involved—the mentor, you as the doctoral student and the interdisciplinary research teams in which you are immersed; thus, USC Chan allocates funds to provide significant financial support for you.
At USC, tuition for every PhD student is currently covered by the university. This means that if you are admitted and enroll, you will receive full tuition support while completing your coursework. Further, our Division awards a stipend each year to each student as part of a 12-month appointment as a Graduate Research Assistant. Annual stipends are typically available for up to five years if you make exceptional progress in your program. For the 2024-2025 year, the stipend amount is $43,890. For the 2025-2026 year, the stipend amount is $45,206.70.
Supporting you as a PhD student at this level is intended to free you from the need to supplement your income through outside employment, allowing you to devote yourself full-time to your PhD studies.
Select applicants are also nominated for prestigious fellowships awarded by the Graduate School (see Graduate School website for a description of the Provost PhD Fellowship Program).
Finally, as a PhD student, you will receive funding to attend national and/or international scientific meetings related to your area of focus.
The USC Chan PhD in Occupational Science degree requires 60 units of coursework beyond the baccalaureate degree, including:
- Core and elective coursework
- Immersion in an interdisciplinary, extramurally funded research group
- Passing a qualifying exam
- Submission of an approved independent dissertation
You are required to maintain a GPA of 3.0 or better (both applied and overall) throughout the program and, in general, you are expected to graduate within 5 years of your entry date.
- View/download the Student Handbook of Policies and Guidelines for the PhD in Occupational Science (updated August 2023)
Advanced Standing
If you have earned a masters and/or doctoral degree, you may apply for Advanced Standing, reducing the units required for the degree from 60 units to 40 units.
Foreign Language or Research Skills
The PhD in Occupational Science does not require a demonstration of competence in a foreign language. Although no research skills are required at the time of admission, you are expected to develop and demonstrate skills in quantitative, qualitative, or mixed research methodologies as applicable to your future career scientist goals. You gain these skills through a combination of coursework, research immersion experiences, and independent dissertation research.
Qualifying Exam
The qualifying examination is comprehensive in nature and requires you to demonstrate a grasp of content from the core courses and the cognate area. The examination is both written and oral and is set and administered by your qualifying exam committee. Your qualifying exam committee is composed of five faculty members. Three members of the committee must be regular faculty from the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. One member must be from outside the division.
Dissertation
You must submit a dissertation based on your original research according to the policies and procedures of The Graduate School. It was decided that the structure and content of the proposal be tailored to whether the dissertation follows a three discrete studies model or a more traditional dissertation/book model. On the former model, the proposal should include an introduction that talks about the 3 studies and any overarching themes that tie them together. It then should include for each study a literature review and a methodology section (the completed dissertation would thus include the addition of a results and discussion sections based on the completed research). For the latter, more traditional dissertation model, the proposal should include an introductory chapter, a review of literature, and a methodology chapter.
Upon approval of the preliminary copy of the dissertation by all members of the dissertation committee, you must pass an oral defense of the dissertation. Upon successful completion of the oral defense and revisions, the manuscript is approved and the committee recommends you to the Graduate School for the PhD. The dissertation committee is composed of at least three faculty members. The chair of the committee and at least one additional member of the committee must be regular faculty from the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. One member must be from outside the division.
Teaching
To prepare you for anticipated roles as a faculty member, a teaching component is incorporated into the program. You work with your faculty advisor for your research immersion (OT 660) experience to identify an appropriate course or courses, arrange mentoring experience, and ensure that the timing of the teaching experience complements your research lab participation and dissertation plans. If you are not assigned a full course, you are required to present a minimum of four lectures or seminars.
Intensive Mentoring
At the time that you enter into the program, you decide, in conjunction with the faculty, which faculty member will act as your adviser/mentor. This individual typically serves as your primary mentor and guidance committee chair throughout your graduate studies. Your chair assists you in designing the correct combination of coursework to equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to accomplish your future aims as an academic. Your mentor also guides you in taking the necessary extracurricular steps that will best position you as a career scientist in your area of concentration. Such advisement may include recommending your attendance at a particular conference, suggesting contact with specific funding agencies, guiding your pursuit of external funding opportunities, aiding in your curriculum vitae and manuscript preparation, and assisting you in locating an appropriate postdoctoral fellowship or in your job search. Because the goal of our program is to position you to become an extramurally-funded researcher, mentors are faculty members who have conducted or currently are conducting grant supported programs.
Scientific Meeting Attendance and Other Supports
Becoming a career scientist involves attending meetings and networking to learn about the latest advances in the field. The Division provides some funding for your attendance at such meetings when they are of relevance to your research program, although funding is more likely to be awarded if you are presenting a paper or poster at such meetings. To maximize this possibility, you are given informal support in conference proposal development. Intense tutorials in publication development and submissions are also provided, as well as support for data analysis. The Division also hosts an Occupational Science Symposium, attracting interdisciplinary scholars from all over the world, which is widely attended by our PhD students.
WASC Accreditation
USC has been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), one of six regional accrediting organizations recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, since 1949. View the student learning outcomes (PDF) for our academic programs.
Becoming a career scientist requires developing expertise in both an area of research and specific methodological approaches, possessing the knowledge to critique occupational science research and scholarship in particular core conceptual areas, demonstrating the ability to produce publishable papers, synthesizing interdisciplinary knowledge and communicating a theoretically-driven understanding of occupational science. You will be able to develop these capacities through your program of study, which will cover: 1) methodological approaches, 2) occupational science core content, 3) specialty emphases linked to the ongoing research programs in the Division, and 4) content addressed in the interdisciplinary cognate selected. As part of the course requirements within each occupational science class, you are mentored in the process of producing publications by the faculty member who teaches the course.
You are required to complete the following courses to be eligible to take the qualifying examination: OT 640, OT 641, OT 648, OT 649, OT 661, and 4 semesters of OT 660. In addition, you must complete a minimum of 26 units (10 units if you have Advanced Standing) of elective cognate courses. After passing the qualifying exam, you must take a minimum of 4 units of OT 794 as you complete an independent research dissertation. A total of 60 units is required to graduate (40 units if you have Advanced Standing); thus, you will need to complete 4 additional units of either OT 794 or elective cognate courses.
Sample Course Sequence
View course descriptions for OT courses.
Note: If you have Advanced Standing, you will typically complete 3-4 elective cognate courses in years one and two instead of 7-8 elective cognate courses noted in the sample course sequence that follows.
First Year Course Overview
Fall Semester One
Fall semester begins in late August and continues for 16 weeks.
- OT 640 (4 units): Conceptual Foundations of Occupational Science
- OT 660 (2 units): Research Practicum
- Elective Cognate Course (4 units)
Spring Semester One
Spring semester begins in January and continues for 16 weeks.
- OT 648 (4 units): Researching Occupation: Engagement, Meaning, and Society
- OT 660 (2 units): Research Practicum
- Elective Cognate Course (4 units)
- Elective Cognate Course (4 units)
Summer Semester One
Summer semester begins in late May or early June and continues for 10-16 weeks.
- Elective Cognate Course (2-4 units)
Second Year Course Overview
Fall Semester Two
- OT 641 (4 units): The Nature of Occupation
- OT 660 (2 units): Research Practicum
- Elective Cognate Course (4 units)
- Elective Cognate Course (4 units)
Spring Semester Two
- OT 649 (4 units): Researching Occupation: Function, Participation, and Health
- OT 660 (2 units): Research Practicum
- Elective Cognate Course (4 units)
Summer Semester Two
- OT 661 (2 units): Grant Writing for Occupational Science
- Elective Cognate Course (2-4 units)
Third Year Course Overview
Fall Semester Three
- Completion of Qualifying Exam (GRSC 800)
Spring Semester Three
- OT 794 (2 units): Doctoral Dissertation
Summer Semester Three
- OT 794 (2 units): Doctoral Dissertation
Fourth Year Course Overview
Fall Semester Four
- OT 794 (2 units): Doctoral Dissertation
Spring Semester Four
- OT 794 (2 units): Doctoral Dissertation
Note: If additional semesters are needed to complete the dissertation, you will register for OT 794 each semester until the dissertation is submitted to the university.
Research Immersion Experiences
The hallmark of our PhD program is immersion for 20 hours per week in an interdisciplinary, extramurally funded research group. Within this group, you will gain experience in interdisciplinary collaboration, grantsmanship, and dissemination through presentations and publications that includes work related to research designs, methodologies and measurement; data collection, management, and analysis; and data interpretation and theory building. An intensive immersion model can be thought of as a learner-centered research apprenticeship. More specifically, this immersion experience provides a context in which you can develop competencies in four domains: 1) participating in the development and implementation of empirically and conceptually sound scientific research, 2) understanding research as a socially embedded and cognitively distributed social practice, 3) developing an appreciation of the career trajectory of a research scientist, and 4) becoming an expert in domain-specific knowledge, methodologies and scholarship.
Our Blueprint for Translational Research
You will be immersed in cutting-edge translational research using a methodology our faculty has been refining for over 20 years. This blueprint was developed based on research related to well elders and persons with spinal cord injury, and it begins with studying a problem for which one eventually intends to develop an intervention. Results of the qualitative work then inform the intervention design. In the next step, efficacy and cost-effectiveness studies, employing randomized clinical trials and theory, are performed. In the final stages, the mechanisms hypothesized to mediate outcomes are tested in order to build theory using sophisticated statistical procedures. Within the USC PhD program, you can explore a rich mix of methodologies, such as measurement of biomarkers, fMRI, utilization of a digital laboratory for analysis of videotape and narrative data and large randomized trial designs.
Immersion Assignment
It is expected that the research immersion will provide a foundation for you to pursue dissertation work that is related to the research domain in which you have been immersed. Assignment to an immersion is made at the time you are admitted to the program. This assignment is based on the faculty mentor’s willingness to accept you as a mentee, your acknowledgment that you intend to pursue a career scientist trajectory within the domain in which you will be immersed, and the forecasted likelihood of the continuance of the immersion throughout the years in which you will be in the PhD program. In most cases, you are immersed in one research group for the duration of your PhD program. On occasion, and assuming there is academic justification, your immersion experience could involve a customized configuration crossing more than one research group.
This work is not done in isolation or in class-based simulations; rather, you contribute actively to the productivity of investigative teams. Our faculty have received over $28.7 million in federal funding for active research projects and we have one of the finest funding track records among departments and divisions of occupational therapy and occupational science worldwide. Our extramural funding portfolio has included other grants from the CDC, the NIDRR, the U.S. Department of Education, the American Occupational Therapy Foundation and others.
Available Immersions
We believe that the wide-ranging content of our research programs prepare you as a career scientist who can confidently make a valued contribution to an interdisciplinary research group. It also places you squarely at the center of translational research that is at the forefront of health-related research. As such, we aim to provide a rich immersion experience by involving you in funded division research, but a variety of immersion experiences are available with all of our PhD program faculty:
Joy Agner PhD, OTR/L
Amber Angell PhD, OTR/L
Lisa Aziz-Zadeh PhD
Grace Baranek PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA
Alison Cogan PhD, OTR/L
Leah Stein Duker PhD, OTR/L
Mary Lawlor ScD, OTR/L, FAOTA
Sook-Lei Liew PhD, OTR/L
Bobbi Pineda PhD, OTR/L
Beth Pyatak PhD, OTR/L, CDCES
Shawn Roll PhD, OTR/L, RMSKS, FAOTA, FAIUM
Alix Sleight PhD, OTD, MPH, OTR/L
A Global Community and Interdisciplinary Partnerships
Our PhD program has had a significant impact in building an international community of occupational scientists. Of the more than 75 students who have graduated from the PhD program, 17 have been international students who, for the most part, have gone on to establish occupational science programs at universities in their home countries and now comprise an international network of occupational scientists. We encourage all of our students to become networked in this larger global community. We are currently developing partnerships with other international academic programs to provide opportunities for our PhD students to participate in global developments in occupational science.
USC Chan has also forged numerous interdisciplinary partnerships that can be tapped to strengthen your program of study. For example, our PhD students are currently participating in activities at USC’s world-class Brain and Creativity Institute and the Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center (directed by Antonio and Hanna Damasio), the cutting-edge Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (directed by Arthur Toga), the Institute for Creative Technologies (directed by Albert “Skip” Rizzo), the Davis School of Gerontology, the Childhood Obesity Research Center, the Institute of Preventive Medicine, and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Students also collaborate in research with extramural interdisciplinary teams at other sites, including Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, and many other local, regional, and national partners.
In addition to direct research experiences, USC Chan has access to a vast infrastructure that supports scientific enterprise at the university. For example, through our interdisciplinary partnerships, you are able to perform studies using cutting-edge MRI and attend university seminars offered on topics related to career trajectories or teaching excellence. You can take cognate courses in any of the university’s Schools and Divisions, including, among others, anthropology, education, gerontology, health promotion, neuroscience, public policy, rehabilitation science and sociology.
USC Chan recognizes that the composition of faculty in occupational therapy and occupational science departments nationwide is not sufficiently representative of the diversity of the healthcare consumers whom the profession serves. Consequently, we strive to recruit superior applicants for our PhD program from culturally, linguistically and economically diverse populations and to provide financial packages that will make it possible for our PhD colleagues to recommend promising students from underserved populations. Read more about diversity, access, and equity at USC Chan and our Diversity Mentorship Program.
Consideration for International Students
For international F-1 applicants, please note that the PhD in Occupational Science program is now a STEM-designated program, therefore the STEM Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension is available.
A Day in the Life of an Occupational Science PhD Student
Dominique, a student in the Doctor of Philosophy in Occupational Science degree program, shares about daily life as a PhD student studying occupational science at the University of Southern California.
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