A PhD Embedded in Commercial Research

Pejman Mirza-Babaei is an Associate Dean Industry Partnerships, and an Associate Professor of User Experience Research, in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Pejman’s story spans Iran, the UK and Canada as he discusses his path from Masters to working in industry to doing a PhD closely tied with a start-up, and then his experiences moving into a tenure track position immediately post PhD, well in fact before his PhD, and later taking a break to work back in industry before working out that academia is what he wants to. What’s particularly interesting in his story is how strategic he has been in exploring his options and making decisions, leading to him getting tenure in very quick time. And what else is interesting is how he is always seeking feedback and open to learn. There is a Part 2 of this conversation (coming next) where he talks about the uncertainty of life post-tenure and how he has navigated these new choices, as well as what he has learning moving into more faculty leadership roles.

“One thing I do a lot is ask for feedback… The important thing about feedback is to listen carefully but not necessarily do all of them… Ultimately it’s your decision and you know what is good for you.”

“Going to a faculty position with mindset that you are doing everything is the fastest way to burnout. “ 

He talks about… [You can download a full transcript here]

2:05 Pejman talks about his background, doing a Computer Hardware Engineering undergrad degree working in a bank as a network manager, finding it boring and deciding to continue his education and ended up at Sussex Uni doing a Master of IT for Commerce and took an HCI course there. But never knew what he wanted to do.

5:05 Being fascinated by computer games as a kid, but never thought of it as a career. Working in a college back in Iran then coming back to Sussex to start a PhD. The teaching part got him excited about a PhD. Originally wanted to study something to do with technology to support people with visual impairment but ended up working with Graham [McAllister] doing games user research.

7:20 Geri provides background on the serendipity of it and Graham being new at Sussex, bringing an interest in games and starting a games user research company.

8:15 Pejman talks about his PhD being relatively unique, working with a start-up games company and working on real cases. Changed his understanding of approach to research questions and how to communicate results back. Applied research. What was challenging then but he benefits from it now was that many academic papers couldn’t be applied to the commercial work they were doing which was more formative evaluation and usability studies, similar to papers but needing to think more on how to apply it.

10:35 Did it feel stressful then? No. Didn’t have stress that this one study had to be the best. Had loads of opportunity to iterate as always new game to test next week. And supportive supervisor. Both understood no-one had done this before, no recipe to follow. Now very proud of what they did in the projects.

12:50 Turning this into a thesis? At some point it felt like a job he was doing. Learning a lot. End of second year [of a 3 year program], tried to capture what he learnt from each project – wrote a page for each and put them on the floor to look for connections. Knew broad aspects eg physiological measures etc but not sure how the story would be. Last year of PhD then more focused on how to visualize this data. So only finding story at end of second year. Ran close to 30-40 studies but only included 4 in the thesis, picking relevant ones. Not a common PhD training.

16:15 Stressful about finding focus? Not that particularly. The whole experience was stressful. But being able to run lots of studies and having a supportive group helped a lot. Benefited a lot from Ben [du Boulay] he would run surgery sessions as open office door and spending a lot of time with him. And the advice about creating the one page of each project to help find the connections. Was also under pressure to publish as were presenting a lot in industry conferences and didn’t want others doing academic publishing on his ideas.

18:55 Went from Sussex to Canada before he finished his PhD. Never thought he would live in Canada. Always thought he would end up somewhere in Europe. But did 3-4 months as a visiting position in Canada in 3rd year of PhD. They had an open position so he joined the interviews to see what was going on. It was a failed search so they re-advertised at the end of his visiting for a researcher job there. So he applied. The only position he has applied for. The intention was to get experience with job interviews only.

20:30 Ended up being offered the position. Big part was his unique experience. They had a games program and wanted to build the HCI/UX part of the program and he came from experience of working on real games plus experience of starting a spin off at Sussex Uni. In line with the vision of the Dean for that position. Applied in Oct, offer in April. Difficult decision. Partner working full-time. And he had an almost full-time job. Had a nice comfortable life in the UK. Talked to Graham for advice. He said Pejman could always go back and work in the company. Unique situation. Didn’t have a PhD.

23:05 Deciding factor to go to a tenure track position rather than a post-doc? Salary. Knowing that he had a safety net back in the UK. And the position was something he was excited about. While some disadvantages of not doing a post doc (more experience, more papers, higher citation number before tenure track). Once he knew he accepted the position, put 100% focus on writing up PhD. Defended in Oct and started position in July before, submitting in August. Didn’t get many corrections but strategic in taking his time to make the corrections to delay the start of his tenure track time, which would have started if he submitted before Jan. So getting one extra year. Submitted final thesis in Jan.

25:55 Tenure track in North America very demanding. Dean was also very supportive. No teaching load in first term and could also write grant. Didn’t negotiate anything! She was just a good Dean ad provided the support he didn’t know he needed.

27:05 So he joined Uni of Ontario in 2013 and now 6 years. Did get his tenure submitting his application 2017, a year early so he didn’t need the extra year. Proud of it. Started PhD 2009. Tenure in 2018.

28:15 Key things important for getting there? Being a UX researcher comes with some benefits ie understanding the stakeholders. Even as a PhD student, he went to sessions in the second year on how to defend a viva and what a thesis looks like, so knowing what he needed to prepare himself for. In tenure track position, went to a workshop in second year on applying for tenure. People laughed but too late to do this in the 5th year. So knew in his second year what he needed to do to get tenure and had a clear strategy for what he needed to do to achieve those. Plus what he does a lot is ask for feedback – couple of meetings with Assoc Dean at the time to show what he was doing. The important thing about feedback is to listen carefully but not necessarily do all of them. Good to get feedback but also important to make your decision. Listen carefully, think about it. Ultimately it’s your decision and you know what is good for you.

31:25 Pejman gives an example about deciding to edit a book. Strategic decision. Thought there was a need in the field to have a book. Majority of suggestions though were right. Talks about another decision re publishing at CHI conference and getting advice to also publish journal papers as important for tenure, which he listened to. Another suggestion re establishing himself as an independent researcher and important to show independence in the tenure process so tried specifically not to collaborate with the people he used to collaborate with. These are the types of things he learned by going to the workshops early.

35:20 Managing those relationships? Talked to them about his need to show his independence and they understood. The tensions between the work being collaborative but review processes wanting to see individuals. Important for his uni was being an independent researcher and the other was cross-faculty collaboration. So purposely joined projects with people from other faculties. Again being strategic.

37:20 Also continued working with industry. In 2015 after first year, wasn’t sure if an academic job was something good for him. The first year in survival mode, no real training for transition from PhD to faculty and that caught him. As PhD expected to do all yourself. Going to faculty position with mindset that you are doing everything is the fastest way to burnout.  In his first year he was trying to teach, set up his lab, literally setting up cabling, and thought he had to do everything himself. At the time it felt too much. And lost all the industry connections he had in the UK. So thought he wanted to go and work for industry.

39:35 Again Dean was supportive of his going to work for a company and allowed him to buy out his teaching. He moved to Montreal from Toronto. Started a position as UX Director for a gaming company. After few months realized he missed his academic life. Missed the flexibility and the freedom of doing the research the way you want to do. Used to flexible working hours and in company had to be there by 8:30. And missed opportunity to do his projects, And missed his own office to be able to focus; company had open office. Did this for 4-5 months. Told company he this wasn’t something he wanted to do full-time, and re-negotiated role to be an on-call advisor for UX. Gave him the industry links he wanted. Looking back partner also didn’t like the experience. But it was really important for his career, both in knowing what he wanted to do and in having connections.

44:05 So back to Uni and things started working out. Got a house, permanent residency. Tells the story of buying his first house and the dream of the sort of house he always wanted to live in leading to his second house on a lake, inspired also by Saul Greenberg’s podcast interview about how living further from the uni gave him opportunity to work from home and focus on his research some days and live in the countryside and do stuff in between. Now working from home he will take a 20-30 min walk a few times a day – thinking walks. Also enjoys the drive to uni as his time.

48:50 Made a mistake initially by deciding to work from home Mon-Wed and only going to campus Thurs-Fri. Not a good idea. People not able to get to him. Going to change it next semester to Tue and Thurs at home. People ok to wait for one day to come and talk but not three days.

50:52: End

Related Links

People:

Graham MacAllister, Ben du Boulay, Saul Greenberg podcast

 Companies:

Vertical Slice startup article

Indie game company, Execution Labs

Papers/articles:

Book: Drachen, Mirza-Babaei, & Nacke, Games User Research, 2018

Book: Phillips & Pugh, How to get a PhD: a handbook for students and their supervisors.