Examiner (non-PAC)

Responsibilities

1. Faculty external to the PAC will review the thesis and serve as a voting member at the oral examination
2. For the PhD Departmental Oral Examination: reviews the IMS Examination Rules of Procedure
3. For the SGS Final Oral Examination: reviews the Doctoral FOE Guidelines

Eligibility Criteria

1. Member of the UofT graduate faculty with expertise in the field
2. Not affiliated with the student’s research project in any way, nor collaborating with the supervisor or student in the last 6 years on research papers or reviews, and have no other perceived or actual conflict of interest*
3. Must not share the same primary academic department as the supervisor
   • Primary academic department =  the department with which the Faculty member gets their first UofT appointment (IMS is never a primary academic department)
   • In the case of larger academic departments such as the Department of Medicine, Surgery or Psychiatry, they cannot share the same Division as the Supervisor

*Conflict of interest is as defined by CIHR

In addition: 

• If the supervisor and an examiner appear together on grants then that is a collaboration
• If the supervisor and an examiner appear together on a paper with one of them as first or senior author, then that will be deemed a collaboration
• If, however, the supervisor and an examiner appear together as middle authors on multi-author paper, then the extent of the apparent collaboration needs to be explained

Important Notes 

• Any joint publications can easily be searched in PubMed and should be checked carefully by the student and supervisor before submission of the examination package to the IMS

Any collaborations or conflicts of interest (including shared academic departments) identified by IMS can significantly delay the examination and may result in the need to replace the examiner and/or reschedule the examination.