About The Traineeship
The Knoxville Wide Bandgap Traineeship is a design-oriented, hands-on graduate degree program at The University of Tennessee Knoxville, focusing on the use of wide bandgap semiconductors in power electronics. Traineeships are available for Masters or Doctoral-level studies. All students accepted into the program will receive a full waiver of tuition, and a $30,000 yearly stipend during their studies.
The traineeships include a $30,000 yearly stipend. Including the tuition waiver (assuming out-of-state yearly tuition), the package comes to over $61,250. The yearly stipend of $30,000 in Knoxville is equivalent to $79,000 in New York, or $61,300 in San Francisco.
The traineeship itself funds two years of graduate study. For Ph.D. students and M.S. students taking longer than two years to complete, the same funding level will be maintained throughout studies assuming satisfactory performance.
24 credits of coursework are needed for an MS; between 24-39 credits are required for a PhD, depending on prior degrees. Coursework for the traineeship is selected by each student, but may include, e.g., power electronics, power systems, microelectronics, controls, RF, entrepreneurship/innovaiton, or professional preparations courses. All trainees will be expected to complete the Traineeship Graduate Certificate.
All students in the traineeship must complete a thesis as part of their degree; the topic for the thesis will include the use of wide bandgap semiconductors in power electronics. Additional detail on the topic are selected based on coordination with your faculty advisor.
The program emphasizes hands-on, design-oriented education. Each trainee will build and test real converters using wide bandgap devices in their coursework and in their research.