An Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program
The Faculty of Information doctoral program is comprised of coursework and dissertation components. It allows students to pursue high-level research into the interactions between information, technology, culture, people and communities.
Right in the heart of Toronto, the world’s most diverse city, the Faculty is located at the center of a thriving campus. This provides an inspiring background to engage in influential research into critically relevant questions that bridge aspects of technology and society, connecting theory and practice.
Our doctoral students come from a wide range of scholarly and professional fields to work with faculty from backgrounds matched to their specific research interests in terms of subject matter expertise and complementary knowledge.
The Faculty of Information is known for its interdisciplinary excellence as well as the research partnership opportunities it offers within the Faculty, the University of Toronto and beyond.
Faculty of Information PhD graduates have gone on to play prominent roles in academia, industry, government and the non-profit sector.
The Faculty of Information Offers:
- Excellent career opportunities in a dynamic international research community
- A structured PhD program with innovative curriculum
- Challenging and cutting-edge research projects
- World-leading university in the heart of a vibrant, diverse city
- Individual supervision and mentoring by globally recognized faculty
- More than 70 distinguished and internationally recognized faculty
- Full funding for international and Canadian students
Research Areas
The Faculty of Information currently focuses on several key research areas. These include:
Research Centres
The Faculty of Information is home to a number of research centres, institutes and incubators. Doctoral students often carry out their dissertation research under the auspices of these groups. More information can be found at the links listed below, or by contacting affiliated faculty members:
Academic Requirements
The Faculty of Information’s PhD program is a full-time program. The customary program length for full-time doctoral study is four years. While our PhD program is officially a four-year program, by custom, our Faculty recognizes that five years is an acceptable time to completion and may extend, if necessary, to a maximum of six years. PhD students must be regularly registered in the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) during each year of their program.
To maintain satisfactory progress, a student must:
- Complete the course requirements by the end of Year 1
- Complete all required electives before the Qualifying Exam
- Complete the Qualifying Exam before the end of Year 2
- Successfully defend the thesis proposal and achieve candidacy by the end of Year 3
- Successfully defend the thesis by the end of Year 4
Helpful Documents
Doctoral students must complete 3.5 full-course equivalents (FCEs) as follows:
- Knowledge Domain
- Research Methods and Design
- Design, Applied, and Creative Practice
Courses that Fulfill the Breadth Requirements 2025-2026
Doctoral students in the Media, Technology and Culture concentration of the PhD program, the 4.0 full-course equivalents (FCEs) must be completed as follows:
INF3001H Research Colloquium 0.5 Credits
INF3012H Social Scientific Methods for Media 0.5 Credits
INF3014H Cultural Interpretive Methods for Media and Technology 0.5 Credits
INF3009H Theory and History of Media Technology 0.5 Credits
INF3010H Power, Media and Technology 0.5 Credits
2.0 FCEs in elective courses relevant to Media, Technology and Culture. Course selection to be determined in consultation with the student’s research advisor.
Students will work closely with an advisor to decide if they should enrol in the MTC concentration. Once a student and their advisor have determined the best path for the student, email PhD iSchool Inquire (phd.
- Changes to enrolment in the MTC concentration can be made any time before achieving candidacy.
- Once candidacy has been reached, requests for changes in MTC concentration enrolment will only be considered for exceptional circumstances.
Following coursework, which typically takes two years, students must:
Doctoral students must complete 4.0 full-course equivalents (FCEs) as follows:
Doctoral students in the Media, Technology and Culture concentration complete 4.0 full-course equivalents (FCEs) as follows:
INF3001H Research Colloquium 0.5 Credits
INF3012H Social Scientific Methods for Media 0.5 Credits
INF3014H Cultural Interpretive Methods for Media and Technology 0.5 Credits
Course selection to be determined in consultation with the student’s research advisor
INF3009H Theory and History of Media Technology 0.5 Credits
INF3010H Power, Media and Technology 0.5 Credits
Students will work closely with an advisor to decide if they should enrol in the MTC concentration. Once a student and their advisor have determined the best path for the student, follow these instructions to select the MTC concentration on ACORN:
- Changes to enrolment in the MTC concentration can be made any time before achieving candidacy.
- Once candidacy has been reached, requests for changes in MTC concentration enrolment will only be considered for exceptional circumstances.
Following coursework, which typically takes two years, students must:
PhD Graduates: Where are they now?
Faculty of Information PhD graduates have gone on to play prominent roles in academia, industry, government and the non-profit sector.
Julian Posada (PhD, Class of 2022)
Julian currently serves as an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Yale University where he is a member of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and the Yale Institute for Foundations of Data Science.
Niel Chah (PhD, Class of 2022)
Niel is putting his PhD to use as a Data Scientist with Microsoft’s Gaming Group. His Xbox team is based in Redmond, Washington but Chah works remotely from his hometown of Vancouver. As part of the data science group within gaming, he’s involved in natural language processing, using statistical techniques and models to help Xbox understand what users are saying.
Admission and Applications
More details about admissions requirements and the application process can be found on the Admission and Applications Requirements page.
Funding
As of Fall 2025, PhD students receive a minimum funding package of $40,000. In the fifth year, the Faculty pays tuition and fees. In all years, students build on their minimum funding package by receiving RAships and additional TAships. PhD students are expected to apply to all applicable external awards and major scholarships. Successful awards and scholarships will be applied to the base funding portion of the funding package where applicable with the award guidelines. Certain awards and scholarships may be eligible for the Research Excellence Award from the Faculty of Information which would be in addition to the base funding. As students enter their final year in the program, they are especially encouraged to apply for the Doctoral Completion Award.
Awards
Detailed information about awards available to PhD students can be found on the PhD Awards page.
Latest News
Faculty of Information at ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
Faculty of Information professors and students will have a strong presence at the 28th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW) taking place in Bergen Norway from October 18 to 22, 2025. CSCW is the premier venue for research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations, communities, and […]
Examining the impact of greenhouse growth
As Canada’s greenhouse sector expands rapidly, it’s become increasingly reliant on migrant labour to keep crops growing. This development has raised questions about the conditions of migrant workers, as well as new agricultural technologies and their impact on labour and the environment. It’s a field ripe for research, as PhD student Olivia Doggett has discovered. […]
PhD student’s Connaught fellowship supports research into outdoor gig workers
Ashique Thuppilikkat of the Faculty of Information has been named one of 15 doctoral students at the University of Toronto to receive a Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellowship for 2025-26. The annual fellowships are designed to offer doctoral students the opportunity to explore the world of public scholarship. Fellows focus on engaging the public through their scholarly […]
Four PhD students named Schwartz Reisman fellows
The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society has announced its 2025-26 graduate fellows including four doctoral students from the Faculty of Information. Along with 11 other PhD students from across U of T, they join SRI’s interdisciplinary community dedicated to ensuring that advanced technologies benefit all of society. SRI fellowships support interdisciplinary research that […]