The Kind of Researcher I Am

The completion of a PhD studies did not mark an end, but the start for a future to perfect. It is a milestone to judge what has been done and contemplate future paths. My thesis jury took care of the former and I will discuss the latter here: What kind of researcher these last 3.5 years have made me and how to proceed next?

What I have learned along the journey?

The path to the PhD taught me how to perform scientific research, with wide spectrum of methods starting from the experimental psychology I saw applied at EPFL, the mixed methods Nicolas employed to study mutual location-awareness and helped me dig to trigger concepts around my observations of spatial uncertainty. With the limitation of quantitative methods to study the messiness of the “real-world”, I embraced the value of qualitative observations to collect evidences and factual knowledge translatable into design knowledge. These description-driven (what is) results allowed me to enter a more prescription-driven (what can be) type of design science research method, closer to my engineering roots, with the generation of design knowledge in the forms of object-design, realization-design and process-design. Working with architects and designers at MIT taught me other approaches to build knowledge from multidisciplinary research (use of sketches, fast-prototyping, urban demos).

Members of my thesis jury questioned the applications of the multiple approaches that challenged the comprehensive and integrated theorization of the work. Indeed, the thesis could have been driven by a holistic theoretical perspective. However, I favored a pragmatic approach, discarding the production of any global theoretical framework that I regularly see artificially produced to complete a PhD thesis work. In fact, as agreed by the jury, my application of multiple approaches has a virtue in regards to its evolving approach to theory. It stresses the value of the interplay of methods to define the phenomena, then observe them and then control them (with design). Yet, the argumentation, clarification and defense of mixed-research methods is still necessary in academia. The constant discussion on the epistemological relevance of some research methods create enclosures within academia that do not provide a fertile ground on the way I conduct my research. It creates an overhead to communicate my work and make it prone to random rejections from an anonymous “quanti-centric”, “quali-only” or “design-is-not-a-science” peer. I notice that this lottery does not fit with my exploration of research processes that do not solely include scientists, as expressed by Bruno Latour in the World Wide Lab: “A crucial part of doing science is formulating the questions to be solved; it’s clear that scientists are no longer alone in this endeavor“.

With a few published journal papers, I have learned to master scientific communication (in english) with its rigorous formats and rules, but also its story telling tricks to capture the reader’s attention. Nevertheless, the overall knowledge dissemination process of academia makes me wonder about its relevance beyond its laboratories. As Julian puts it in Where to Next Design:

“The question of relevance also comes to mind with regard to academia, which was arguably the one thing you might guess I was preparing for. I mean, why else get a PhD in an area of inquiry that’s as close to Philosophy and Critical Theory as anything. I’m not hating too hard, but there are challenges ahead for academia if it wants to participate in the idea/knowlege/insight/culture circulation networks beyond the greenways of its campuses. There’s the insularity of its publishing practices. Who really reads the swirl of endlessly regurgitated write-ups that sluice through the ACM and Springer-Verlag presses every year. They’re locked away behind password protected and over-priced journals, have citation practices that have no qualms with incest and, let’s face it, peer-review? P’lease.”

Besides my many publications, the outcome of my research drew more attention and challenging feedback from hybrid forums than my academic communities. It might be the direct consequences on 1) my application of multiple approaches that do not fit to any precise research community enclosure 2) the insular nature of academia in the knowledge dissemination. In consequence, the venues to communicate and exchange have naturally become these hybrid forums, that bring these feelings of being in the belly of the beast instead being inclosed in some research community, with its limited access to scientific outcomes with an old publication model.

Finally, along the journey to the PhD, I have further developed other skills such as problem formulation, data exploration and interpretation and evaluating other people’s work. The latter was new in respect to my engineering background that did not prepare me in looking upstream. I have reinforced the skills and qualities from engineering such as the definition of a problem relevance and the application of rigor. (see also Anne Galloway’s What we learn list)

My terms to frame research

This PhD further alimented the wish to follow my curiosities rather than the clear career path academia would propose (see Julian’s curiosity rather than career). My thesis jury valued the exploratory aspect of my work with “highly innovative” and “high level of originality” remarks. In contrast, they noticed that my explorations created a “lack of an integrated literature review on the topic under investigation“. I wish to continue creating and argument the utility of “innovative” rather than “integrated” aspects of research. This path implies the development and appropriation of epistemologies, methodologies and purposes. In practical terms, it means leading research projects that call for new:

• Processes that, for instance, involve non-scientists (citizens) for question formulation, data collection and solution creation.
• Tools for sensor data mining, urban data analysis and analysis result communication. I will need to further develop my expertise in statistics and spatial analysis, participating to the Rise of the Data Scientist.
• Idea generation and solution creation; calling back my engineering skills to once again build for other rather than myself unlike I have been selfishly doing to support my research (see All jokes aside, engineers are practically creative).
• Upstream observations, looking into what research communities are contemplating for the near-future, trying to tease out some of the more absurd assumptions, naive projections and hidden agendas (see Interview with Mark Shepard: ‘critical design’, architecture, urbanism and location based media).
• Downstream observations, that consider implications of the integrations and appropriation of technologies, their context, applying for instance urban scouting practices (see Sliding Friction and 3 pieces about ethnography and design).

Next step

The hybrid place to perform research on these terms does not necessarily exist yet. We are creating it. More on that soon.

An engineer/researcher on the move