PhD in Computer Vision
About This Programme
A University-funded (Year 1, pending a faculty advisor match) PhD in Computer Vision: advanced visual computing research over 3–4 years with a 32-credit thesis.
Course Highlights
- Ph.D. students are centrally funded by MBZUAI in Year 1 while matching with a faculty advisor, then funded by that advisor from Year 2, subject to a confirmed match and satisfactory progress.
- Research in 3D reconstruction, detection, medical imaging, vision-language and diffusion models.
- Access to computing labs with nearly 1,000 Nvidia DGZ-1/2 GPU servers.
- Qualifying and Candidacy exams then a 32-credit thesis.
What You'll Study
A 3–4 year full-time doctoral programme on the Masdar City campus with advanced computer-vision cores, electives, research methods and an internship, a Qualifying Exam (Year 1) and Candidacy Exam (Year 2), then an original 32-credit thesis. Ph.D. students are centrally funded by MBZUAI in Year 1 while matching with a faculty advisor, then move to that advisor's funding from Year 2, subject to a confirmed match and satisfactory progress.
Core courses
Core: 2 courses, 8 credit hours, taken by every student.
- Advanced Computer Vision (CV801)4 credits
- Advanced 3D Computer Vision (CV802) OR Advanced Techniques in Visual Object Recognition and Detection (CV803)4 credits
Research methods, internship and thesis
- Advanced Research Methods (RES899)2 credits
- Ph.D. Internship (up to four months) (INT899)2 credits
- Computer Vision Ph.D. Research Thesis (CV899)32 credits
Specialised electives (4 credit hours)
Students must select four credit hours from the CV specialised electives.
Published elective list
- Advanced 3D Computer Vision (CV802)4 credits
- Advanced Techniques in Visual Object Recognition and Detection (CV803)4 credits
- 3D Geometry Processing (CV804)4 credits
- Life-long Learning Agents for Vision (CV805)4 credits
- Advanced Topics in Vision and Language (CV806)4 credits
- Safe and Robust Computer Vision (CV807)4 credits
- Medical Multimodal Vision (CV8501)2 credits
- Trustworthy Medical Vision (CV8502)2 credits
- Advanced Topics in Large Multimodal Models (CV8503)2 credits
Further electives (remaining 12 credit hours)
The remaining twelve credit hours are selected from the wider doctoral list.
Published elective list
- Single Cell Biology and Bioinformatics (CBIO803)4 credits
- Advanced Foundations of AI System Design (CS8201)4 credits
- Advanced 3D Computer Vision (CV802)4 credits
- Advanced Techniques in Visual Object Recognition and Detection (CV803)4 credits
- 3D Geometry Processing (CV804)4 credits
- Life-long Learning Agents for Vision (CV805)4 credits
- Advanced Topics in Vision and Language (CV806)4 credits
- Safe and Robust Computer Vision (CV807)4 credits
- Medical Multimodal Vision (CV8501)2 credits
- Trustworthy Medical Vision (CV8502)2 credits
- Advanced Topics in Large Multimodal Models (CV8503)2 credits
- Advanced Topics in Continuous Optimization (ML804)4 credits
- Advanced Topics in Reinforcement Learning (ML806)4 credits
- Causality and Machine Learning (ML808)4 credits
- Advanced Learning Theory (ML809)4 credits
- Dimensionality Reduction and Manifold Learning (ML813)4 credits
- Advanced Parallel and Distributed Machine Learning Systems (ML815)4 credits
- Emerging Topics in Trustworthy ML (ML818)4 credits
- Foundations of Machine Learning (ML8101)2 credits
- Advanced Machine Learning (ML8102)2 credits
- Algorithms for Big Data (ML8501)2 credits
- Machine Learning Security (ML8502)4 credits
- Probabilistic Graphical Models (ML8503)2 credits
- Data Synthesis (ML8504)2 credits
- Tiny Machine Learning (ML8505)2 credits
- Interpretable AI (ML8506)2 credits
- Predictive Statistical Inference and Uncertainty Quantification (ML8507)2 credits
- Privacy and Fairness (ML8508)2 credits
- Collaborative Learning (ML8509)4 credits
- Natural Language Processing - Ph.D. (NLP805)4 credits
- Advanced Natural Language Processing - Ph.D. (NLP806)4 credits
- Speech Processing - Ph.D. (NLP807)4 credits
- Current Topics in Natural Language Processing (NLP808)4 credits
- Advanced Speech Processing (NLP809)4 credits
- Vision-to-Language Generation (NLP8501)2 credits
- Vision for Autonomous Robotics (ROB804)4 credits
Entry Requirements
Three references and an independent research statement. Screening exam and technical interview.
Careers
Graduates become research scientists and faculty in computer vision across academia and industry.
Accreditation & Professional Recognition
Accredited by the UAE Commission for Academic Accreditation (status Active on the CAA register).
Programme Details
Award
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Computer Vision
Start Date
Annual Fall intake (August)
Typical Offer
Bachelor's CGPA 3.5 or master's 3.0 (STEM); IELTS 6.5 / TOEFL 90
Duration
4 years
Qualification
Doctorate
Subject Area
Computer Vision
Study Pattern
Full time
Delivery Format
In person