Selecting Your Examiners

As a candidate it’s important to remember that you don’t get to formally choose your examiners. At best you can make suggestions to your supervisors: they can follow those ideas or not depending on what they think would work best for you, your thesis and the situation.

It’s reasonable to ask your supervisor why they think that Professor A or Doctor B are a good choice if you’re not sure. If your supervisor isn’t following your suggestion then you can at least know why and work from there.

You can safely assume that any examiner you would have is experienced and has the benefit of training. Beyond that, if you have the option to make suggestions, the first step is to think about what you would really like. What matters to you when you think about a good examiner? Do have names in mind or are you thinking about a kind of person? A specialist or a generalist? Or something else?

Explore your preferences, shortlist some names and then have a conversation with your supervisors. You might not get your choice but you can be confident that whoever your examiners are they are prepared and selected for good reasons.