Internal PhD thesis reviewer pulled out a month before the thesis due date: Is this allowed? What to do next?
Such situations are not uncommon in academia. I would caution you against trying to get this person back as a reviewer, even though you have signed papers from 4 years ago. Simply respect that person's decision to back out, thank her or she for their time thus far, and invest your energies finding somebody that will serve as a reviewer so you can graduate. Perhaps this sounds like rather odd advice. Just put yourself in the shoes of a person who doesn't want to serve as a reviewer but is subsequently forced to do so. You are at risk of getting a very unfavorable review, and the 40 days could become much longer. You have plenty of time to get somebody on board, and you will certainly encounter situations in your future career that are far more egregious.
This happened to me, too: one of my committee members was suddenly unavailable for several months and unable/unwilling to work with me on scheduling my defense.
My process:
- Took deep breaths and stopped panicking.
- Reviewed the profiles of all eligible faculty members in the university
- Picked a shortlist of 3 people in related fields that I wanted to meet
- Asked my advisors for feedback (valuable - they knew who was a difficult committee member)
- Emailed my top choice, Prof. S, to be on my committee.
- Got a positive reception, met with Prof. S to discuss my work; they were friendly and mildly interested.
- Scheduled the defense (tough, with five professors).
- Sent my thesis out for reading, defended, and passed!
I believe this worked out well, and instead of a reluctant committee member, I got exposure to the leader of a significant program in my field. It still wasn't ideal, however, and I would've been in a bad position if Prof. S took issue with me, my other committee members, or my work.
You could also skip to step (3) and ask your advisors for advice - but I think it's worth taking control of an issue with so much potential influence on your career.