PhD Student Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi – UAEA applicants are invited for the position of “PhD Student” as part of a joint research project between Masdar Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The research thrust is aimed to develop cost-effective fabrication process for obtaining high efficiency multijunction solar cells using advanced concepts. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to visit MIT to work with the MIT counterpart team. The project’s Principal Investigators are:Dr. Ibraheem Almansouri, Masdar Institute

Requirements:
Recent MSc. in Materials Science, Electrical Engineering or a related field from well-reputed institution.
Conference or journal publications are beneficial.
Good oral and written communication skills are essential.
Welling to work on team

For the PhD program, students can start their studies in FALL on SPRING term. Other options might be possible on a case-by-case basis.
APPLICATIONS FOR THE PHD PROGRAM ARE ACCEPTED NOW. You can submit your application online at Masdar Institute Admissions page (http://www.masdar.ac.ae/Admissions) from November 1 to May 31 of each ear. If you are applying for Spring PhD admissions, our advice is to submit the application by email to the admissions office as early as possible, without waiting until the online application system is reopened in November.
To enter our PhD program, you must have Masters degree. You can apply if you don’t have your MSc degree yet, but you are in the process of receiving it, in which case please indicate your expected graduation date (and be sure to graduate by that date).
If your ultimate goal is the PhD degree but you do not have a Masters degree yet, you should you should first apply to our Masters program. Then, in the last year of your Masters program, you will submit another application the PhD program. Admission into the PhD program for current Masters students is not guaranteed. However, if a student did a good job in his/her Masters studies, and is capable of making progress in his research projects, it makes very little sense for his advisor not to support his application but to start from zero with a new student.
Application requirements for the PhD program are the same as for the Masters program; please make sure to check the Masters program section above. The additional requirement for PhD applicants is to submit a research proposal, as explained below. The rules for applicants without GRE scores are different: unlike MSc admissions, conditional admission is not an option, and applicants without GRE can only be admitted in special cases when they have at least two journal or conference publications.
As mentioned above, PhD applicants must submit a research proposal as a part of their application. Please do not be intimidated by this requirement. The proposal is about the general areas which interests you, the topics which you find exciting, how do you think you can contribute given your background, and whether you are more inclined to working on theory, experiment, or fabrication. We do not expect you to present a specific research project you will undertake at Masdar – we understand that most (if not all) students need help from their advisor and familiarity with the available facilities and the currently ongoing activities to formulate such a project. If you can formulate a specific research project, which is both interesting and technically feasible, this will definitely strengthen your application. However, this is not something which is expected from all applicants. (Please also note that if you really want to work on some specific project/topic and nothing else, there must be a faculty who is willing to work on this project, and there must have funding available for conducting this research, which is something you should confirm prior to coming to Masdar). As mentioned above, we welcome applicants from backgrounds other than photonics, and we will take into account that for such students composing a feasible research proposal is especially challenging.
All admitted students will have the following benefits:

Scholarships/research assistantships providing full financial support is available to all admitted students. It includes all tuition fees, medical insurance, housing, travel expenses, laptop, and a cost of living allowance;
Access to the cleanrooms and the electron microscopy lab;
Opportunity to work in laboratories with state-of-the art equipment.

Contact: Dr Ibraheem Almansouri ([email protected])