The Ph.D. degree represents the highest level of academic preparation. With it, a student can expect to maintain technical competence and contributions throughout a professional career. It is usually the preferred degree for research and development in industry and government and for teaching. Doctoral studies emphasize independent research under the guidance of a research advisor in a field related to Chemical and Biological Engineering, culminating in the writing of a thesis document and its defense in a presentation to the department and the thesis committee. Financial support typically comes from fellowships, research assistantships, teaching assistantships, or a combination.<br><br>Problems under investigation include interfacial resistance to mass transfer and the interaction between surface forces and interfacial convection. Work in the interfacial area is concerned with heat, mass, and momentum transfer in multicomponent, ultrathin, liquid films. Research includes studies on condensation and evaporation in the contact line region, distillation from ultrathin films, lubrication, surface-tension-driven instabilities, pattern formation in dendritic growth, self-assembly of block copolymer materials, protein-solid interaction, and the design of biocompatible surfaces.