Lessons from the PhD Journey of the 2024 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award Winner
By Nivedita Arora
Foreword
Nivedita Arora, this year’s ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award winner, candidly shares stories from her six-year Ph.D. Computer Science journey at Georgia Tech, advised by Gregory Abowd and Thad Starner. She talks about the ups and downs, the strategies that helped make her research more impactful yet enjoyable, and how it shaped who she is today.
Nivedita is a multidisciplinary researcher who recognizes that with the growing challenges of climate change and e-waste, the need for ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) devices must be balanced with sustainability. Her research rethinks computing devices and systems from a sustainability-first approach for their entire lifecycle — low-carbon manufacturing, a battery-less system design, and responsible end-of-life bio-degradation or reuse. She calls this emerging field Sustainable Computational Materials (Figure 1). Its first demonstration, battery-free interactive sticky notes for smart home control, was developed in her dissertation, Sustainable Interactive Wireless Stickers: From Materials to Devices to Applications. Now, she is expanding that vision to other applications like precision agriculture, robotic exoskeletons, and smart infrastructure as the Breed Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Computer Science (CS) at Northwestern University, where she directs the VAK Sustainable Computing Lab. Below, Nivedita shares 19 lessons from her Ph.D. journey that she teaches in her Ph.D. Life Skills Building Class and to her grad students.
1. Be on a Constant Mission to Refine Your Ph.D. Research Story
A Ph.D. dissertation typically comprises three projects combined under a common research theme or vision. Your purpose as a Ph.D. student is to weave these projects into a compelling vision. This does not happen overnight; rather, it takes time and constant effort over the years. You need to keep returning to the question: What is my research vision and impact? Ph.D. students often achieve solid first-author papers (or projects), but their works may lack cohesion under a single theme. This is why it’s essential to think both in terms of long-term vision as well as short-term outcomes. In my case, I initially outlined a high-level plan to create an interactive battery-free sticky note encompassing individual projects on sensing, communication, display, and computation. However, my overarching dissertation story required constant refinement and a stronger rationale. Initially, the focus was on interaction (computational materials), but through significant effort and feedback from multiple researchers at conferences, it evolved into a sustainability narrative (sustainable computational materials) by the end of my Ph.D. This shift allowed me to address urgent environmental issues such as climate change, food security, and disaster monitoring without contributing to e-waste.
2. Be Fearless and Don’t Let Anyone Limit Your Potential
As a CS Ph.D. student, I worked in a cleanroom, built devices in a fume hood, and frequently spent time in wet labs (see picture on the left). This unconventional approach was essential for pursuing my vision of Sustainable Computational Materials, which required rethinking the computing stack. I needed to embrace my identity as an innovator. I am still often asked, “Are you an HCI, Systems, or Materials researcher?” I believe that boxing myself into those categories stifles my creativity. Maintaining this perspective takes courage, especially when others try to categorize you. My advice is to stay grounded: listen to feedback, but don’t change your answers to please others. Ultimately, do what feels true to yourself, and remember—you are meant to fly.
3. Focus on Quality, Not Quantity
Play the long game. Striking a balance between quality and quantity is crucial. During my Ph.D., I chose to pursue projects that I believed would significantly advance the research field rather than ideas that felt like mere iterative additions. Consider what you want to be known for in five years, then work backward and let that guide your project choices. If you aim for high-quality work, you may produce papers at a slower pace—be patient, and don’t compare yourself to others. Submit short posters or review articles to keep your momentum going while working on full papers. These are archived but considered works in progress and don’t count against your full papers. This strategy helps maintain a sense of accomplishment and allows you to hone your communication skills. During the pandemic, I continued submitting posters and workshop papers, which helped me maintain my confidence. For example, after SATURN as the main technical paper, I wrote SATURN: An Introduction to the Internet of Materials and SATURN: Technical and Design Challenges of Building a Self-Sustaining Sound and Vibration Sensing Material as commentaries on the original work in CACM and GerMobile magazines.
4. Attend Random Talks in Your Department/Engineering School
Research often happens at the intersection of fields. Broaden your horizons beyond your own research area. Attend random talks in your department and beyond. You might only understand 10% of the talk, and that’s okay. Slowly, you’ll build the vocabulary to understand different types of research and how they can influence each other. My Ph.D. research, in particular, mixes CS systems research with materials science. I made it a point to interact with a materials scientist and even attend their conferences. Actively seeking out these opportunities helped me become the multi-disciplinary researcher I am today.
5. Keep a Running List of Potential Research Topics
As a graduate student, my early research ideas weren’t always original, but I made it a habit to write down every idea in a notebook. I believe you have to generate a lot of “bad” ideas before the good ones start to emerge. Over time, I began to connect dots across different fields, resulting in the research I do today. So, start documenting your ideas—it will help you refine your sense of what quality research looks like. Bonus: A few years later, you can look back and either smile at your early thoughts—or even surprise yourself!
6. Keep a Running List of Relevant Researchers to Help Create a Knowledge Map
As a young researcher, tracking all the names you encounter in papers or conferences can be overwhelming. Keep a spreadsheet of researchers, their universities, fields, and academic lineage to map out key contacts and the “innovation story” of your field. Study the career paths of established researchers—their backgrounds, key papers, and milestones. Also, read iconic papers from 50 years ago. Understanding the history of your field helps you better imagine its future and write stronger paper introductions and contributions.
7. Be Bullish About Improving Your Communication Skills
Learn to communicate confidently and clearly in every type of medium (written, oral, video, diagram, poster), length (prep your research elevator pitch), size of group (1-1, 5, 50,100), place (conference room, stage), and type of audience (K12, the general public, academic). Learn to make quality figures and videos; don’t underestimate the impact of visuals on your audience. As a Ph.D. student, I gave a talk at Georgia Tech Ubicomp on how to give a good poster presentation, where I detailed how to create an experience with give-away postcards, live prototypes, and visualizations when presenting a poster. I hope this helps!
8. Maintain an Active Online Presence
People are Googling you and your work—believe me, they are. Keep your website and resume updated, and actively post about your research on social media. When your paper is published, be sure to tweet about it and write blog posts to inform your network. Sharing your work not only increases visibility but also fosters connections with others in your field. An active online presence can help you build your professional identity and engage with a broader audience interested in your research.
9. Network with Different Researchers in Various Settings
I suggest that all Ph.D. students seek opportunities to work with researchers in various settings—whether in academia, industry, patent law, or consultancy. Internships and conversations at conferences can provide valuable insights into responsibilities and the different paths available after research. My internships at Microsoft Research and Intel Labs connected me with strong female mentors like Lama Nachman and Vaishnavi Ranganathan, who inspired me to believe that success was attainable. Additionally, sharing my vision with researchers across various conferences and departments, including Georgia Tech, contributed significantly to my growth as both a scientist and a person.
10. Do Service Work—Lots of It
Service builds character, organizational skills, and a network. It also makes you more tolerant and teaches you how to handle sudden changes in plans. I was a group meeting organiser for GT Ubicomp Lab for two years. This empowered me to take on bigger tasks like organising conference workshops. These responsibilities have definitely prepared me to become an assistant professor today.
11. Proactively Apply for Ph.D. Fellowships and Awards
Taking the initiative to apply for Ph.D. fellowships and awards can create a snowball effect—winning one prize often opens doors for future opportunities. I’ve seen firsthand how the best paper and poster awards at conferences like UbiComp, UIST, and Mobisys led to larger accolades, such as the ACM Ubicomp Outstanding Student Award. Being proactive is essential: keep track of deadlines, prepare your proposal materials thoroughly, and request letters of recommendation on time. Networking can be a valuable asset in this process, as having other accomplished researchers know and value your contributions can significantly enhance your chances of success.
12. Understand How Money Flows in Your Research
Whether you join industry or academia, you will eventually be responsible for raising funds for your research team and ideas. Empower yourself by actively participating in proposal writing with your principal investigator (PI) during your Ph.D. This experience will deepen your understanding of how funding works and prepare you for the real world. As a new PI, I wish I had engaged more in this process during my own Ph.D. journey.
13. Learn Psychology and People Skills
Being a researcher is fundamentally a people-oriented profession. Pay attention to those around you and strive to understand their motivations and how you can contribute to their success. Familiarize yourself with concepts like attachment styles and listen to experts like Brene Brown and Adam Grant. Developing a high Emotional Quotient (EQ) is invaluable, and with intentional effort, you can enhance this crucial skill.
14. Normalize Struggle During Your Ph.D.
Talk about your struggles with other researchers. It does not make you less of a human. I experienced depression during my Ph.D. for about two years. I don’t shy away from acknowledging the hard journey or the lessons I learned, and in fact, it definitely made me a more empathetic person and a better researcher. The message of my diversity statement was that mental health is an issue of equity. Acknowledging this makes me a better professor today. With the same intent, I have started a Ph.D. life skills-building course at NU ECE. Here is the coursework.
15. Detach Your Emotions from Research
Don’t get too happy when you win awards or make significant research discoveries, and don’t get too sad when things don’t work out. View paper rejections as an opportunity to improve and submit to other journals or conferences. This is not failure. Learn to detach your emotions from research. Make sure you have other sources of dopamine. Pick a sport or hobby. Sit in the sunshine every day. Journal. Meditate.
16. You Are Not on a Timeline in Life
Life flows out of you, not at you. If you have anxiety and panic built up in your nervous system, others will notice. I easily added an extra year to my Ph.D. to focus on my mental health. Taking gap years or progressing slowly takes courage. Recognizing that you are never “late” in life and are perfectly fine on your own timeline is empowering.
17. A Ph.D. Will Grow You as a Human Being, Not Just a Researcher
If you have something to work on in your personality, a Ph.D. has a strange way of bringing it to the surface. It can be painful, and you might feel like you’re doing two PhDs at the same time—one in self-growth and the other in research. However, I guarantee that going through it will make you a much better version of yourself.
Personally, I needed to integrate parts of myself that were in complete duality. As an Indian female student, I was weighed down by a feeling of incompleteness because I was not married—something society and family deeply ingrained. I knew how to be strong and assertive in my professional life, but I struggled to have a similarly strong voice or boundaries in my personal life and was primarily a people pleaser. I had to understand the nuances of my conservative upbringing and societal conditioning in my behavioral patterns, redefine my beliefs, and create a life in alignment with my values. Sadly, this is not an uncommon scenario and is faced by many women. For any female going through something similar, reach out to your mentors, consider consulting a therapist, and develop a strong self-care routine. Please know that you can also reach out to me for help and advice.
18. Strategically Position Yourself in Healthy Research Environments
Doing quality work also means overcoming your insecurities, which is perhaps even harder than the research itself. It also requires strategically positioning yourself in labs that support your ambition and help you grow. Identify what a healthy and safe lab environment looks like to you. One good indicator is that you feel hopeful and happy after meeting your advisor or lab mates, even if everything in research doesn’t seem to be going well. Observe the interaction between the PI and the students in the lab. The students generally should not be working out of fear of their PI but out of excitement of creating something cool.
19. Feel Responsible for the Health of Your Lab, University, and Research Community
Understand that the research you are doing is a product of your efforts and environment. You have a significant role in shaping the culture in your lab. Be a leader and take initiative. Be on the lookout for ways to contribute to both your lab and the research community at large.
On this PhD journey, you have the potential to not only grow as a person and researcher, but also to impact those around you—embrace every moment, learn from the challenges, and enjoy the ride!