SCHEDULING YOUR DEFENSE
Thesis Defenses are open to the public and must be scheduled in advance to ensure they meet all administrative requirements for graduation.
STEP 1 – IDENTIFY THESIS DATE & TIME
At least five weeks before your defense, work with your committee to identify a date and time everyone is available for your thesis defense.
STEP 2 – SCHEDULING REQUEST
As soon as possible, but no later than two weeks prior to your defense, email the following to computer-science@calpoly.edu:
- Thesis date, and start and end time
- Thesis title and abstract (include as text in the email body)
- Names of your thesis committee members (as they should appear on flier and email announcement)
- Location of your thesis
- If you need a physical room for your thesis defense, or if no room is needed (ie attendees only joining by zoom).
- If you have a zoom link for others to join the defense, please include the zoom link as it will be included announcements about your this defense
EMAIL EXAMPLE
Email Title: Thesis Scheduling Request – Jane Doe – 05/27/27 from 12-3pm
Hi CSSE Team,
I’d like to schedule my thesis defense, details are below:
Thesis date: 05/27/27
Thesis Start & End Time: 12-3pm
Thesis Location: Need a room for thesis / Do not need a room for thesis
Zoom link (if applicable): paste zoom link here or state “no zoom link”
Committee Members: Dr. Khosmood, Dr. Kurfess, Dr. Gonzalez-Sanchez
Title: Feature-Selected Gradient Boosting Outperforms Parametric Baselines for Genomic Prediction of Mastitis Susceptibility
Abstract:
Predicting complex disease traits, such as mastitis, from high-dimensional genomic
data is a significant challenge in modern dairy cattle breeding. Traditional genomic selection models, including mixed linear models and Bayesian approaches, are industry standards but may not fully capture complex, non-linear interactions within the genome. This study investigates the potential of machine learning models, particularly Transformer and tree-based architectures, to improve prediction accuracy. Using a covariate-residualized feature-selection pipeline, we compare Transformer, Random Forest, and LightGBM models against GBLUP and BayesR in 1,860 first-lactation cows (93 clinical mastitis cases) genotyped at 624,300 SNPs…(shortened for this example email).
STEP 3 – CONFIRMATION & NEXT STEPS
Staff from the department will email you back with instructions and confirmation of a reserved room for your thesis. With the information provided, they will also post public announcements and send you a link with a form to fill out after your thesis defense.