Construction Management

Course Requirements

Ph.D. 54 credit hours (with a BS degree)

The Construction Management concentration requirements for PhD students are described below. A total of 54 credit hours are required. Courses should be from at least two different departments with a minimum of 6 hours from each department. Courses should also be from two colleges with a minimum of 3 hours from each college. At least half of the course work (27 semester hours) must be taken in courses offered by engineering departments within the college. Requirements include 24 hours of course work concentrated in at least two sub-areas of specialization within one or more academic departments. The remaining 30 semester hours of course work must contain no more than 15 hours in any one department.

Required Courses: (13 credit hours)

  • HRE 7901 Research Methods or equivalent
  • EXST 7004, 7005, 7006 or equivalent
  • Six credit hours in construction management courses. The six credit hours can be selected from the following list. An updated list of courses can be found in the CM department website:
  • CM 7110 Advanced Productivity
  • CM 7203 Advanced Sustainable Construction
  • CM 7030 Project Delivery
  • CM 7111 Construction Scheduling and Diagnostics
  • CM 7213 Soils in Construction
  • CM7220 BIM
  • CM 7150 Decision Making tools for CM
  • CM 7230 Lean construction
  • CM 7211 Construction Dispute resolution
  • CM 7250 Natural Hazard Resistant Construction
  • CM 7214 Concrete Materials in Construction

Additional Courses: 41 additional credit hours are needed. For these additional courses, the student can select a focus area or choose a more generic path. Focus areas include:

  • Advanced Materials & Sustainability (sub areas are Material science and Sustainable engineering)
  • Building Science For Disaster-Resistant Communities (Sub areas are Disaster Science and Management, Civil Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering, Experimental Statistics, Geography)
  • Built Environment Informatics (Sub areas are Analytics of Building or Urban Sustainability and Virtual Construction and Simulation 
  • Capital Facility Management (subareas are Business administration, Lean construction, Industrial engineering)
  • Generic Path (other technical electives) – Students can select the remaining 41 credits from any course offered within LSU.

PES - Construction Management

Major Area: Advanced Material & Sustainability (30 CHs)

Sub-areas (24 CH):

  • Material Science (A CHs)
  • Sustainable Engineering (B CHs)
  • A + B = 24 CHs

Major Area: Building Science for Disaster-Resistant Communities (30 CHs)

Sub-areas (24 CH):

  • Building Science (A CHs)
  • Engineering Hazards & Environment (B CHs)
  • A + B = 24 CHs

Major Area: Built Environment Informatics (30 CHs)

Sub-areas (24 CH):

  • Analytics of Building or Urban Sustainability (A CHs)
  • Virtual Construction & Simulation (B CHs)
  • A + B = 24 CHs

Major Area: Capital Facility Management (30 CHs)

Sub-areas (24 CH):

  • Business Administration (A CHs)
  • Industrial Engineering (B CHs)
  • A + B = 24 CHs

Major Area: Interdisciplinary Research in Construction (30 CHs)

Sub-areas (24 CH):

  • Define Sub-area (A CHs)
  • Define Sub-area (B CHs)
  • A + B = 24 CHs

*CH = Credit Hour


Courses list for Advanced Materials and Construction Sustainability option are:

EVEG 4154 Sustainable Engineering
ME 4723 Advanced Materials Analysis (SEM)
ME 7723 Materials Characterization Using Electron Beam Methods (TEM)
CE 7485 Mechanics of Composite Materials
CE 4440 Advanced Mechanics of Materials
CE 7475 Solids Mechanics
CE 7450 Energy Principles in Engineering Mechanics Processing and Manufacturing
ME 7743 Defects, Diffusion and Phase Transformations in Materials
PHYS 4141, 4142 Intro to Quantum Mechanics
CE 7480 Plasticity and Viscoelasticity : Theory and Applications
CE 4450 Finite Element Methods
CE 7455 Finite Element Method in Engineering
CHEM 7251 Elemental Analysis
CHEM 7750 Special topics of Analytical Chemistry (Electrochemistry)
CHEM 7770 Special topics in Inorganic Solid State and Materials Chemistry) 
CE 7485 Mechanics of Composite Materials
CHE 7582 Polymerization and Polycondensation Processes
ME 4743 Kinetics in Materials Processes
ME 4783 Composite Materials: Manufacturing, Properties & Design
EE 7244 Advanced Lithography
CE 7650 Bituminous Materials and Mixtures
CE 4650 Asphalt Mix Design
ME 4433 Heat transfer 
ME 7433 Advanced Heat transfer I
ME 7443 Advanced Heat transfer II
ENVS 4101 Environmental Chemistry
ENVS 4261 Energy and Environment
ENVS 7043 Environmental Law and Regulation
ENVS 7040 Environmental Planning and Management
ENVS 7047 Environmental Economics and Policy
EXST 7014, 7015, 7016 or equivalent
CM 7214 Concrete Materials in construction
CM 7206 Special topics 
CM 7207 Independent studies 
CE 7345 In- Situ Testing and Evaluation

Courses list for Building Science for Disaster-Resistant Communities option are:

ARCH 4440 Louisiana Tectonics
CE 4560 Engineering Applications of Remote Sensing
CE 4200 Hydrology
CE 4310 Geotechnical Engineering III: Deep Foundations
CE 4320 Coastal Engineering
CE 4440 Advanced Mechanics of Materials
CE 4445 Hurricane Engineering
CE 4560 Engineering Applications in Remote Sensing
CE 7405 Statically Indeterminate Structures
CE 7430 Structural Design for Dynamic Loads
CE 7455 Finite Element Methods in Engineering
CE 7700 Reliability in Structural Engineering
CE 7701 Special Topics- Wind Engineering
CSC 4402 Introduction to Database Management Systems
CSC 7333 Machine Learning
CSC 7700 Knowledge Discovery
DSM 7000 Policies and Practices of Emergency Management
DSM 7910 Seminar
EVEG 4154 Sustainability Engineering
EXST 7015 Statistical Techniques II
EXST 7034 Regression Analysis
EXST 7036 Categorical Data Analysis
EXST 7037 Multivariate Statistics 
EXST 7039 Statistical Methods for Reliability and Survival Data
EXST 7060 Probability and Statistics
EXST 7152 Advanced Topics in Statistical Modeling
GEOG 4046 Webmapping
GEOG 4047 Intro to GIS
GEOG 4048 Methods of Spatial Analysis
GEOG 4997 GIS/Remote Sensing
GEOG 7914 Climate Extreme Events
GEOG 7935 Quantitative Methods for Geographical Analysis
GEOG 7946 Coastal Resources
GEOG 7973 Advanced Geographic Information System
MATH 4038 Mathematical Methods in Engineering
OCS 4410 Ecosystems Modelling
OCS 8900 Hurricanes and Typhoons

Courses list for Built Environment Informatics option are:

ARCH4062 Urban Design and Planning
CE7640 Urban Transportation Policy and Planning
CE7641 Urban Transportation Planning Models
CSC4243 Interface Design and Technology
CSC4263 Video Game Design
CSC4356/ME4573 Interactive Computer Graphics
CSC4357/ME4583 Applied Computer Graphics
CSC4402 Introduction to Database Management Systems
CSC4512 Optimization: Modeling Approaches, Algorithms and Applications
CSC4444 Artificial Intelligence
CSC7300 Algorithm Design and Analysis
CSC7333 Machine Learning
CSC7375 Robot Vision
CSC7402 Database Management Systems
CSC7442 Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
CSC7443 Scientific Information Visualization
CSC7444 Advanced Artificial Intelligence
CSC7481 Information Retrieval Systems
CSC7600 High Performance Computing
ECON4130 Urban and Regional Economics
ECON4320 Environmental Economics
ECON4325 Applied Resource Economics
ECON7610 Mathematics for Economists
ECON7630 Econometric Methods
ECON7631 Econometric Methods II 
ENVS7010 Mathematical Modeling in Energy and Environmental Management
ENVS7040 Environmental Planning and Management
ENVS7050 Spatial Modeling of Environmental Data
EXST7014, 7015, 7016 or Equivalent
GEOG4045 Environmental Remote Sensing
GEOG4047 Geographic Information Systems
GEOG4048 Methods of Spatial Analysis
GEOG7935 Quantitative Methods for Geographical Analysis
GEOG7973 Advanced Geographic Information Systems
GEOG7975 Advanced Remote Sensing Seminar
IE4425 Information System Engineering
IE4426 Distributed Information Systems Engineering
IE4520 Supply Chain Logistics II
IE4540 Reliability Engineering
IE7425 Advanced Information Systems Engineering
IE7428 Semantic Analysis
IE7455 Lean Process Improvements
IE7541 Linear Programming Algorithms
IE7561 Programming Methods in Operations Research
IE7565 Metaheuristics
IE7768 Sequencing and Scheduling
OCS4410 Ecosystem Modeling and Analysis
PSYC7030 Cognitive Basis of Behavior
PSYC7040 Social Basis of Behavior
PSYC7948 Research Methodology and Application in Behavior Analysis

Courses list for Capital Facilities Management courses options:

IE 4362 Advanced Engineering Statistics
IE 4425 Information Systems Engineering
IE 4453 Quality Control and Six Sigma
IE 4461 Human Factors
IE 4520 Supply Chain Logistics II
IE 4530 Lean Manufacturing Systems
IE 7466 Human Interaction with Computers
IE 7541 Linear Programming Algorithms
IE7722 Risk Mgt Eng. 
IE7762 Supply Chain Sys 
IE7764 Logistics & Dist 
IE7768 Sequencing & Scheduling
EXST 7014, 7015, 7016 or equivalent
CSC 4890 Introduction to Theory of Computation
CSC 7001 Computing principles I
CSC 7002 Computing Principles II
CSC 7101 Programming Languages Structures
CSC 7300 Algorithm Design and Analysis
CM 7206 Special topics 
CM 7207 Independent studies
CMST 4113 Communication and Leadership in Teams 
KIN 4513 Facilities Management 
IE 4540 Reliability Engineering 
DSM 4600 Crisis Management
ENVS 7040 Environmental Planning and Management
ENVS 7042 Environmental Conflict Resolution
ENVS 7045 Land Use Law and Regulation
ENVS 7700 Integrated Environmental Issues
EVEG 4153 Hazardous Waste Management
FIN 7310 Real Estate Financial Decisions
HRE 7723 Leadership and Organization 
HRE 7571 Performance and Needs Analysis in Human Resources Development
HRE 7575 Managing Change in Organizational Systems
HRE 7725 Leadership Development Strategies in Organizations 
HRE 7727 Advanced Leadership Theory and Practice
ISDS 4113 Information Technology Project Management 
ISDS 4180 Business Analysis in Practice
ISDS 7230 Project Management 
ISDS 7501 Information Systems
ISDS 7535 Information Technology Management