Refer to the CUNY SPH fieldwork webpage for current information and directions. 

To register for Capstone (PUBH 698), students must have completed 33 credits within the following breakdown: 

Course Type	Credits Required	Specific Courses
Core Courses	15 credits
Concentration Courses	9 credits	EPID 620, BIOS 620, and EPID 621 or BIOS 621
Electives	6 credits	Within Epi/Bio endorsed electives list (may substitute an elective with EPID 621 or BIOS 621, whichever is not taken for the concentration course)
Fieldwork	3 credits	PUBH 696
TOTAL	33 credits

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There are two types of capstone papers students may choose: a research project (Master’s Essay) that is based on original research and data analysis, and a practice paper (Capstone Paper) that is based on work conducted during the Applied Practice Experience (e.g., fieldwork). For the Master’s essay option, along with the above requirements, students are typically required to have a minimum of a 3.7 GPA. Procedures for both are outline below. 

Master’s Essay Procedure: 

• Designate this option in your Capstone Paper Proposal Worksheet. 

• Select a first and second reader for your master’s essay (note: your first reader MUST be a faculty member in your CUNY SPH Concentration Department, second reader can be a faculty member from outside the department or outside of SPH) 

• A master’s essay is a paper that reports on original research, with the general expectation that the finished product is of publishable quality, meets professional standards, and is useful to some external audience (e.g., journal readers, practitioners, advocates, other researchers).  

• Students who choose the essay option must submit a detailed proposal to the capstone faculty member by the end of the semester preceding the semester in which the student expects to enroll in the capstone course (that is, one semester in advance). The proposal should be 2 to 4 single-spaced pages and should outline and describe the project and include the names of the master’s essay mentor and one or more additional reviewers. If the essay falls in the category of research report, the plan must include background and significance, hypothesis, data and methods. The capstone faculty member reviews the plan, assesses whether the proposal is expected to be of publishable quality, and approves/disapproves it.  

• Students writing a master’s essay must follow the guidelines for the particular journal to which they expect to submit the manuscript. Every journal has an online Information for Authors section that describes in detail requirements for style of the main text, length of the manuscript, references and artwork.  

• Students are strongly encouraged to submit their master’s essay for publication. Advisors can be co-authors on the paper, but generally, the student is expected to be the first author. Student and advisor should discuss and agree on the publication plan, co-authorship possibility, and order of co-authors before submission of the master’s essay proposal, and should ensure that the final authorship follows IJCME guidelines. No matter the type of major written work the student chooses to do, a summary of the work will be presented in a lecture format or as poster. Part III of this handbook provides the specifics on the two means of communicating their work to others. 

Capstone Paper Procedure: 

• During the Fieldwork course (PUBH 696), students will begin working on their Capstone proposal. 

• Upon completion of this course, proposals will be reviewed by the Research Design Tutor. 

• The Research Design Tutor will then forward them to the MPH Director for final approval. 

• Your capstone proposal may require some revisions and updates. 
  
• Once you have received final approval, you will be notified of both your approval to register and that have been given CUNYfirst access to register for the course.  

Department Endorsed Electives 

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MPH in Epidemiology & Biostatistics 

MS in Population Health Informatics (PHI) 

PhD in Epidemiology

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Epi/Bios Syllabi Archive 

• Course waiver/substitution requests must be completed by the student and approved by the Department Deputy Chair (reviews concentration and elective courses) and the School’s Curriculum Committee (reviews core courses). You will be notified of the outcome of your request via e-mail. 

• Course waivers and substitutions are not affiliated with course credit. If you would like to transfer credit for a course previously taken, please complete a Transfer Credit Request. See the Transfer of Credit section of the CUNY SPH academic policies for more information. 

Change of Concentration requests must be completed by the student and approved by the Department Deputy Chair. You will be notified of the outcome of your request via e-mail. 

Criteria Prior to Submitting: 

• Only current students who have completed at least one full semester of coursework may request a change of concentration. Incoming students should contact the Office of Admissions regarding concentrations ([email protected]) 

• Both the MPH in Epidemiology & Biostatistics and the MS in Population Health Informatics programs require final grades for the current semester to be posted prior to submitting this request. 

• Both the MPH in Epidemiology & Biostatistics and the MS in Population Health Informatics programs require a minimum of a 3.0 GPA. 

• The MPH program in Epidemiology & Biostatistics requires completion of PUBH 613 and PUBH 614 before applying for transfer and either a: 
  • grade of A- or better in both EPI 1 and BIOS 1, OR 
  • grade of A- or better in both EPI 2 and BIOS 2 

Review Periods or Requests to Epi/Bios:

The request will not be reviewed until all grades for the current semester have been posted. You may submit your request at any time, but please take note these are the periods of time when submissions will be reviewed each year. Once grades are posted, submissions are reviewed during the following periods: 

• 12/21 – 12/27 (excluding holidays) 

• 1/15 – 1/21 

• 5/25 – 6/1 (excluding holidays) 

• 8/05 – 8/10 

Credit Overload requests must be completed by the student and approved by the Academic Dean. You will be notified of the outcome of your request via e-mail. 

See the CUNY SPH Maximum Enrollment section of the SPH academic policies for more information.

All requests for LOAs and MOMs  must be completed by the student and approved by the Department Deputy Chair. Requests must be submitted within the first 2 weeks of the semester. You will be notified of the outcome of your request via e-mail. 

• Students on maintenance of matriculation cannot receive financial aid and/or defer loans. Please speak to a someone in the CUNY SPH Financial Aid office for more information. 

• Doctoral students are only eligible for maintenance of matriculation if they are in the process of completing their second exam (DPH students), or if they will have defended their dissertation prior to the semester in which they plan to graduate. 

See the Student Leave of Absence and Maintaining Matriculation sections of the  SPH academic policies for more information. 

CUNY SPH degree-seeking students may Request to switch their program mode only once between online-only or in-person/hybrid mode. 

Online students are permitted to only take online classes. 

In-person/hybrid students are permitted to take classes in any mode (online, hybrid, or in-person).

Eligibility: 

• Only students who entered CUNY SPH in Fall 2020 or later should complete this form. Those who matriculated prior to Fall 2020 are not eligible for this request. 

• Those who are enrolled in advanced certificates, or the MS degree in Population Health Informatics are not eligible, as these are only online programs . 

• The PhD in Epidemiology program is not eligible for online only mode. 

• For international students reminder to review the CUNY SPH Current International Students page for information on course mode requirements. 

• Financial Implications: Students requesting a switch in program mode should understand the financial implications as related to state residency. Please direct these questions to [email protected]. 

General Questions: If you have general questions, please e-mail [email protected]. 

Please complete  the Transfer Credit Request Form  for each course you are requesting to transfer credits from. 

See the Transfer of Credit section of the CUNY SPH Academic Policies for more information. 

Coming soon!

Room Scheduling with Outlook-7-22-22

Book a one-on-one quantitative tutoring session. Please keep in mind that sessions fill quickly, particularly those after 6:00PM. 

Open group drop-in sessions are held weekly.  Students can feel free to pop in and out of these sessions; registration is not required. 

Quantitative Tutoring and Writing Assistance are available to all CUNY SPH students. 

For conference support, we suggest that you first review the SPH Graduate Student Government Association (GSGA) Student Awards and Applications page. If you need assistance,  e-mail: [email protected] 

We provide funding for conferences, publications, and doctoral research.  

Form: Publication Request Form 

• This policy is based on the Harvard Open-access Publishing Equity (HOPE) fund policy. 

Funding: Up to $9,000 per year to fund 3 publications. 

Overview 

The fund is intended to pay publication fees on peer-reviewed scholarly articles by CUNY SPH authors who carried out the work while in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and who list the Department as their primary affiliation. Funds are subject to several restrictions based on the works, the fees, the journals, the authors, and the timing. 

How to Apply 

• Authors seeking funds should complete this online form. 

• Please note that authors will need an ORCID (https://orcid.org/) to complete the application process. 

• Authors must request reimbursement of article-processing fees within 60 days from receipt of the publisher’s invoice for the accepted article. 

• If you may leave CUNY SPH before receiving the invoice from the publisher, or before the 60-day deadline, contact [email protected] . 

Eligibility 

Funds are available to any CUNY SPH Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics employees and students (including faculty, researchers, staff, postdocs, and fellows) who are presenting their research at a conference. Receiving authors must list CUNY SPH Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics as their primary institution. 

Grant-funded research 

If the research is funded by a grant, the grant should be the primary source of publication funding. 

Requirement of public access history 

Applicants must demonstrate that all (with small numbers of exceptions allowed for articles more than 5 years old) of their previous publications are available to the public, either through open-access publication or posting of pre-prints to public repositories such as biorxiv, medrxiv, PubMedCentral, or the CUNY archive. The easiest way to demonstrate compliance is with a link to the Public Access section of their Google Scholar profile (example) or a printout of their NCBI My My Bibliography public access compliance report. 

Reimbursable Fees 

Reimbursable article-processing fees may include: 

• Publication fees (charges levied on articles accepted for publication, including page charges). 

• Submission fees (charges levied on articles submitted for publication). 

Eligible fees must be based on a publication’s standard fee schedule that is independent of the author’s institution. 

Method of Reimbursement 

Fees will be reimbursed through Research Foundation of CUNY procedures, which generally includes two options: 

• Submission of an invoice and proof of payment by the author, such as the cleared credit card transaction and EITHER photo of the credit card showing author’s name and last four digits of the card OR the credit card statement with the transaction (the first 12 numbers of the card may be blacked out on the statement as long as the last four and cardholder’s name are visible). 

• In the case of foreign transactions, reimbursements will take into account the exchange rate of an author’s bank, and cover that cost on his or her behalf. However, the fund will not reimburse additional bank fees or fees related to the transfer of payment or currency conversion. For instance, the fund will not reimburse wire-transfer fees. 

• If the publisher is an approved vendor for RF CUNY, submission of the Invoice for direct payment by RF CUNY to the publisher. 

Eligible Publication Venues 

The venue of publication must be an established open-access journal (a journal that does not charge readers or their institutions for unfettered access to the peer-reviewed articles it publishes). 

• Journals with a hybrid open-access model or delayed open-access model are not eligible. 

To be eligible, a journal must meet these additional requirements: 

• The journal must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), unless the journal is too new for DOAJ eligibility. 

• The publisher must be a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association or adhere to its Code of Conduct. 

• The journal must make articles open access under a Creative Commons license. 

• The journal must have a publicly available article-fee schedule. 

• The journal must have a policy to waive or substantially discount fees in case of economic hardship. 

We trust requesters to make appropriate decisions about the quality of the publication venue and the value of its services in relation to the fees it charges. As we gain experience with administering the fund, we may institute further procedures for vetting journals. 

Grant-funded research  

Articles for which alternative funding is available are typically not eligible for reimbursement. This includes articles reporting research funded by a gift or a grant from a funding agency, foundation, or other institution (including CUNY SPH itself) that allows grant funds to be used for article processing fees (whether or not the particular grant had budgeted for such fees and whether or not sufficient grant funds remain), and articles funded by an institution that itself pays article processing fees on behalf of the author (such as Wellcome Trust). 

Limits on Reimbursement 

• The fund will pay up to $3,000 per CUNY SPH author per fiscal year. 

• Apart from this cap, reimbursements can cover 100% of fees, and there is no limit on the number of fees reimbursed. 

• Unused amounts do not roll over to future years. 

• Exceptions to the $3,000 cap may be made based on availability of funds. 

Multiple Corresponding Authors 

In the case of an article with multiple corresponding authors, each corresponding author is responsible for a prorated portion of any publishing fees. For example, for an article with three corresponding authors that is to appear in a journal with a $3,000 publication fee, each corresponding author is responsible for $1,000 of that fee. If two of the corresponding authors are eligible for reimbursement, they may enter an application for $2,000. 

When the Reimbursement Process Begins 

The reimbursement process will begin for an eligible author who has applied for funds as soon as the applicant has supplied the departmental administrator [email protected] with a publisher invoice and proof of payment. 

Other Considerations 

• Former Affiliates: The fund will cover otherwise-eligible works submitted for publication while the author is an otherwise-eligible CUNY SPH affiliate, even if the works are published or scheduled for publication after the author has left the institution. 

• Tax Status (Employees): For CUNY SPH employees (faculty members or paid researchers), the payment or reimbursement may be viewed as a “working condition fringe” (excludable from income, not reportable on Form W-2). 

• Tax Status (Non-employee students): For non-employee students, the payment or reimbursement of the fees would not be deemed a “working condition fringe”, but rather, scholarship or fellowship payments, which may be taxable. For U.S. persons, there is no requirement for CUNY SPH to withhold or report the amount. For non-U.S. persons, taxable amounts are subject to reporting on a Form 1042-S, and are subject to withholding, subject to any income tax treaties. 

Forms: Student form 

Overview 

The Conference Reimbursement Fund is designed to support the professional development of CUNY SPH Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics employees and students by reimbursing travel expenses and/or conference fees for presenting at academic conferences. The fund aims to enhance the visibility of the department’s research and foster networking opportunities. 

How to Apply 

• Applicants seeking reimbursement should complete the online application form using the link above. 

• Applications must be submitted within 60 days of returning from the conference. 

• If you anticipate leaving CUNY SPH before the reimbursement process is complete, contact [email protected]. . 

Eligibility 

• Who is Eligible: Funds are available to any CUNY SPH Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics employees and students (including faculty, researchers, staff, postdocs, and fellows) who are presenting their research at a conference. 

• The applicant must make a presentation at the conference (such as a talk, poster, workshop, or other presentation to conference attendees) and list CUNY SPH Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics as their primary affiliation. 

• Grant-funded research: If the research is funded by a grant, the grant should be the primary source of travel funding. 

• Requirement of Public Access History: Applicants must demonstrate that any previous conference presentations and publications are publicly accessible, either through open-access repositories or CUNY institutional archives. 

Reimbursable Expenses 

Reimbursable travel expenses may include: 

• Conference registration fees 

• Airfare (economy class). For international travel, flights must comply with the Fly America Act (you must fly a U.S.-based airline, with certain exceptions). 

• Ground transportation (e.g., taxis, shuttles, public transit) 

• Accommodation (standard room rates) 

• Meals (up to a specified per diem rate) 

• Miscellaneous expenses (e.g., poster printing, visa fees) 

Method of Reimbursement 

Reimbursements will be processed through the Research Foundation of CUNY procedures. Applicants must submit: 

• Original receipts and proof of payment (e.g., cleared credit card transaction). 

• A completed reimbursement form. 

Limits on Reimbursement 

• Grant-funded projects should rely on that grant as the primary source of funding. 

• Reimbursements can cover 100% of eligible expenses, subject to fund limits. 

• Unused amounts do not roll over to future years. 

• Exceptions to the cap may be made based on the availability of funds. 

When the Reimbursement Process Begins 

The reimbursement process will begin once the applicant has supplied the departmental administrator with all required documentation, including receipts and proof of payment. 

Other Considerations 

• Former Affiliates: The fund will cover eligible travel expenses for works created while the author was an eligible CUNY SPH affiliate, even if the conference occurs after the author has left the institution. 

• Tax Status of Reimbursements: For CUNY SPH employees, reimbursements may be considered a “working condition fringe” (excludable from income). For non-employee students, reimbursements may be taxable as scholarship or fellowship payments. 

• Double-reimbursement is forbidden: The Department of Epi/Bios allows supplemental sources of funding, but double-reimbursement for the same expense is not allowed and is a form of fraud that will be checked. Please inform [email protected] if you are splitting costs across multiple sources of funding. 

List of Epidemiology Conferences 

For a list of upcoming Epidemiology conferences, see the epiMonitor – Epidemiology Events. Please email [email protected] to report any important event that is missing. 

Highlighted Conferences 

• New York City Epidemiology Forum (NYCEF): Registration is free to this local conference that occurs every spring, and many of our MPH and PhD students have presented posters. The forum host and location  changes every year. 

• American Public Health Association (APHA). An important annual Public Health conference. CUNY SPH covers APHA membership for all students and provides travel awards for any CUNY SPH student with an accepted poster or oral presentation. 

Other Recommended Conferences 

These conferences have also been attended and recommended by Epi/Bios faculty. 

• Society for Epidemiology Research (SER) 

• Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) 

• New York State Public Health Association (NYSPHA) 

Form: Doctoral research reimbursement form 

Overview 

The Doctoral Research Expense Reimbursement Fund is designed to support the research activities of doctoral students in the CUNY SPH Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. The fund aims to alleviate financial burdens associated with conducting research, thereby enhancing the quality and impact of doctoral dissertations. 

How to Apply 

• Doctoral students seeking reimbursement should complete the online application form. 

• Applications may be submitted prior to incurring expenses to request direct payment, or no later than within 60 days of incurring the research expenses. 

• If you anticipate leaving CUNY SPH before the reimbursement process is complete, contact [email protected]. . 

Eligibility 

• Who is Eligible: Funds are available to any doctoral student in the CUNY SPH Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics who is actively engaged in research activities related to their dissertation. The applicant must list the CUNY SPH Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics as their primary affiliation. 

• Requirement of Public Access History: Applicants must demonstrate that their previous research outputs are publicly accessible, either through open-access repositories or institutional archives. 

• Grant-funded research: If the research is funded by a grant, this mechanism should only be used if the project for some reason cannot be funded by the grant. 

Reimbursable Expenses 

Anything required for completion of your doctoral research is eligible. Some examples of reimbursable research expenses are: 

• Data collection costs (e.g., survey administration, participant incentives) 

• Laboratory supplies and materials 

• Software and data analysis tools 

• Travel expenses for fieldwork (e.g., transportation, accommodation) 

• Miscellaneous research-related expenses (e.g., printing, copying) 

Method of Reimbursement 

Reimbursements will be processed through the Research Foundation of CUNY procedures. Applicants must submit: 

• Original receipts and proof of payment (e.g., cleared credit card transaction). 

• A completed reimbursement form. 

Limits on Reimbursement 

• Grant-funded projects should rely on that grant as the primary source of funding. 

• Reimbursements can cover 100% of eligible expenses, subject to an annual cap. 

• Unused amounts do not roll over to future years. 

• Exceptions to the cap may be made based on the availability of funds. 

When the Reimbursement Process Begins 

The department will either make payments directly to the vendor, or begin a reimbursement process once the applicant has supplied the departmental administrator with all required documentation, including receipts and proof of payment. 

Other Considerations 

• Former Affiliates: The fund will cover eligible research expenses incurred while the student was an eligible CUNY SPH affiliate, even if the expenses are submitted for reimbursement after the student has left the institution. 

• Tax Status: For CUNY SPH employees, reimbursements may be considered a “working condition fringe” and thus excludable from income. For non-employee students, reimbursements may be taxable as scholarship or fellowship payments.