Welcome to the IDPhD

Welcome to Memorial University's Interdisciplinary PhD Program (IDPhD), housed within the School of Graduate Studies. IDPhD students pursue studies across various departments and faculties; our program presently has 40 doctoral students.

The IDPhD offers an intimate and varied community, in which students bring strong individual initiative to studies that cross traditional disciplinary borders, together with the shared research concerns and expertise of a diverse supervisory committee.

Applicants are encouraged to take an active part not only in shaping their interdisciplinary research projects, but also in putting together their committees of supervisors from across any of the University's faculties and schools.

The IDPhD Society

The IDPhD Society was first proposed on March 25, 2025.

The Society has, as its purpose, the enrichment of the intellectual experience of the IDPhD programme participants (and other graduate students) and to that end, the Society aims initially to organize two seminars per semester with interdisciplinary speakers. The Society will aim to invite speakers with an active research profile.

Although ultimately the seminars will be open to all IDPhD and graduate students, we do propose, in a first stage, to open the seminars to (current and past) IDPhD students only. Every event will have coffee/tea and a small bite to eat. Every seminar needs to be pre-booked (i.e. we need to keep a tally of all attendees registering for the seminar - so we can book a room and other sufficient coffee/tea and small bites).

The founding members of the Society will suggest names of speakers across any interdisciplinary field - for each semester. We will host speakers for both Fall and Winter semesters. All events will be held on the St. John's Campus, and will have a Zoom connection. Of course, we encourage in-person attendance. Attendees at the interdisciplinary seminars may want to become members of the Society. Members do not pay dues.

Our first semester of operation will be Fall semester of academic year 2025-2026.

The founding members (in alphabetical order) of the Society are:

• Patience Ahiaku
• Miriam Bowlby
• Katrielle Edmond
• Emmanuel Haven
• Keith Matthews
• Shelley Neville
• Chau Phung
• Amie Richards
• Jesse Schnobb
• Tisia Procopio Stemp

IDPhD Admissions Committee

We are grateful to the members of the IDPhD Admissions Committee for their precious input in the study of the application files. These members are as follows:

• Dr. Amy Warren - Associate Vice-President (Academic) and Dean of Graduate Studies
• Dr. Emmanuel Haven - Director, IDPhD Program
• Dr. Jacqueline Blundell - Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies), Faculty of Science
  
• Dr. Ray Gosine, Associate Vice-President (Research)

As Director, I look forward to this next term in the Interdisciplinary PhD Program at Memorial University. If you have any questions about our program and/or the IDPhD Society, please feel free to contact me at ehaven@mun.ca.

Kind wishes,

Dr. E. Haven