Who Chooses Your Examiners?
Verbs matter. You don’t choose your examiners.
- Your supervisors nominate potential examiners, and more often than not these nominations turn out to be your examiners.
- Your supervisors nominate, but your faculty or graduate school have to approve the nominations.
- The nominations are approved, but your examiners have to accept the requests and agree to examine your thesis.
Your examiners have to accept, after your institution has approved the nominations made by your supervisors.
Where do the ideas for these nominations come from? From the judgment of your supervisors. From the research in your thesis and the work you’ve done. From your suggestions – you are allowed to share your opinions on who would be good examiners with your supervisors. Consider your preferences, what criteria do you think a good examiner would have to satisfy? Then think about which academics you know of might meet those criteria and share your ideas with your supervisors.
Then you wait for the nomination, the approval, the acceptance – but you don’t choose your examiners.