How to Work at a Research Institute When You’re Not an Academic
Data & Society team members share their career paths
Data & Society is a research institute that produces both original research and programming, and thus employs both academics and specialist practitioners. We combine academic rigor with creative outreach to connect, convene, and sustain networks with a variety of stakeholder groups. This work requires that our staff have expertise in design, labor organizing, finance, events production, communications, administration, strategy, and management.
In response to frequent emails we receive asking how one can carve out a nonprofit career path at an organization like ours, we’ve asked our colleagues how they got to Data & Society, and what advice they have for those who are pursuing a similar path. Everyone interviewed below noted that digging deep and building meaningful relationships in the spaces we currently inhabit is the most important task to proactively pursuing a career trajectory. Exploring and reflecting upon our strengths and interests can open doors. Finding the right events in a specific network, reaching out to those whose work you admire, or seeking out different ways to contribute to work that is already happening and runs parallel with what we eventually want to do can be some of the first steps to take. It’s hard to pin down exactly what the arc of our careers will look like, and what the “logical” next step should be to fit that arc. Yet being intentional about what values and skills to nurture is important, especially for those coming from professional or personal backgrounds where simply following “serendipitous” opportunities is not a realistic, equitable, or sustainable method.
Let’s start in the present. Take a look at where you are right now. What networks do you already exist in? Who are the people in your circles that are doing the work you’d like to do? Events Producer Rigoberto Lara Guzmán reflects:
I was working at a documentary film studio archiving and transferring hundreds of analog video tapes to digital files. Rendering so much metadata and handling the materiality of magnetic tape began to condition me to working within information systems. Organizing complexity is what producers attempt to do and often it takes immense patience.
In 2017, I volunteered at the Radical Networks conference, co-organized, at the time, by my friend Erica Kermani. I witnessed how events logistics function to convene complexity and excitement around an idea: What Priya Parker calls The Art of Gathering. This led to a programs internship at Eyebeam, a Brooklyn-based art and tech incubator, where I began to hone an events production skill set, learn the landscape, and acquire the right conceptual vocabulary. Just being in the space I began to notice the entanglement of networked relationships and the ways information is shared. It’s how I learned about Data & Society. The challenge in entering any technical space is overcoming the imposter voice to see ourselves as integral actors in the spaces where we want to belong — what Dr. André Brock calls “avoiding deficit frameworks.”
In the beginning, like many first generation children of working class immigrants, I aspired to become what the Austrian management consultant, Peter Drucker, termed a “knowledge worker”— someone who produces value by thinking; a kind of disembodied capital. As descendents of manual laborers, we become enticed by technology, and the job security it portends, as an out. I have spent the last several years unlearning this toxic script and tracing its roots back to colonial tactics for managing land and labor, the raw material for the algorithmic economy.
On a practical level, I would say show up, follow through, and take up space. Figure out who it is you ride for and how best to serve those relations. All organizational systems, whether public or private, function on an asymmetrical distribution of power and wealth. Learn to situate yourself and your lineage within these systems and be ready to exit if you have to. Discern what game it is you are playing and learn to navigate the rules. The rest cannot be reduced to a linear trajectory. There is no coherent narrative for underestimated, diasporic people. Our stories are a mesh. What matters, despite all structural impediments to our growth, is to infiltrate and innovate. Enter through the backdoor if you have to.
— Events Producer Rigoberto Lara Guzmán
Meanwhile, Senior Designer Yichi Liu reminds us to focus and reflect on what it is we value and care about in our lives. It can be difficult to pair our unique interests with the next steps of our career, but it’s never absurd to seek out pathways that let the two run concurrently. We should take time to think about our goals and values, and determine which of those we want to prioritize in the work we do. It’s daunting to zoom out and look at the entire arc of our careers; instead, we can focus on elements that we’ve already established are a must:
After taking an online course in Sociology, I decided to quit my previous job at a design agency, where I’d worked on some projects for nonprofit organizations. That got me interested in nonprofits, so I thought “why be a middleman at an agency that makes profits off nonprofits?”
I don’t really have a career “scheme,” probably because I don’t see it as the most important aspect of life, especially now, given what’s happening in the world. But I wanted to work with people who care and try to make a difference. I didn’t want to become a designer that only cares about aesthetics and business.
Career choices or life choices are subjective. Asking yourself what you want and what you care about is always helpful. I know it’s easier said than done, but you won’t know if you don’t try.
— Senior Designer Yichi Liu
We all have invaluable skills and interests that can position us in spaces where they will be appreciated and nurtured. Human Resources Manager Ronteau Coppin tells us that while building upon our existing capacities, we might just find new ones along the way if we are open to it. What are your successes, and who are your supporters to-date? We all have fans rooting for us on the sidelines and want to see us oriented towards our unique directions:
Shortly after I graduated from undergrad, I got a teaching fellowship at a new charter school, and quickly found myself deeply entrenched in operations work — and I really liked it. I found my passion in being a people person behind the scenes managing logistics, and every step I’ve made since then has been in that direction.
One of my former supervisors introduced me to the Office Manager position at Data & Society in 2018. She challenged me to consider this role that she could imagine me flourishing in. Her mentorship was key because she encouraged me to go after what was best for me, even if it meant she’d be losing me as a great worker and team member. Looking back on this interaction with my former boss, I realize now that some very important seeds about career growth and trajectory were planted:
1. Be great in the position you’re in now to prepare you for your next step.
2. Be open to taking on new tasks, responsibilities, and projects. You might accidentally find something you’re really good at.
3. Be willing to speak up and voice any questions, comments, or concerns.
4. Be sure to document your successes and accomplishments at least twice a year.
5. Be intentional about building meaningful relationships with managers and sharing your aspirations — you never know how they can point you in the right direction.
As I have recently been promoted here at Data & Society to HR Manager, I can truly say that I am proof that watering these seeds makes all the difference. I’m immensely grateful for all the experiences that have brought me to this point. I’ve always heard that HR is a natural next step after office management, but I would have never imagined that my career trajectory would find me like this and that I’d be ready to dive in with both feet.
While you might not know what the next stage of your career is, rest assured that people are watching and want to see you succeed! Dig deep and make the best of where you are now as your gifts will always make room for you.
— Human Resources Manager Ronteau Coppin
What new experiences are you looking for? What is missing for you right now? Program Director Aiha Nguyen explains we need to step back and reflect on where we are right now. This can help us determine where we want to go, and what missing piece we may want to find elsewhere. What answers will you find when faced with incompleteness? Start connecting with new communities, seek out the events, workshops, or any other opportunities there are to connect. We never know what direction these new experiences will take us in:
Data & Society didn’t clearly fit into my career trajectory. Before joining Data & Society I worked for an economic and worker justice nonprofit. I led campaigns to improve and raise standards for service workers in industries like retail, janitorial, and hospitality. In this role, I was confronted with situations in which technology was making jobs worse, like self-checkout systems, automated scheduling technology, and the entrance of Amazon into the retail sector. These disruptive technologies were challenging for us to comprehend and respond to because there was not enough understanding of the systems. Moreover, responses to these challenges were often reactionary, resulting in solutions that were short-term that did not address the larger issues. However, I felt a strong urge to think about these problems more broadly.
When I decided to leave that job, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. I did want to look outside the labor movement. Data & Society provided that opportunity to think about the impact of technology on labor and about culture change as a part of systemic change in an entirely new multidisciplinary setting. My advice would be to seek out new spaces and ways of thinking, particularly if you feel like something is not complete. We can get stuck in a particular way of doing and thinking. Stepping further away may provide that space to find that answer, and opportunity to contribute in a different way that could be just as important but might not be immediately visible.
—Labor Futures Program Director Aiha Nguyen
Networks can be supportive for plenty of reasons. Having a network of people that are invested in our growth and share our mission keeps us motivated to invest time. These are the people who are willing to share the unsaid and unwritten tips of the field, and stick with us through our careers. Senior Research Analyst Cristina Lopez notes the importance of empathy and support in our networks and communities, especially in her path to Data & Society:
Because of visa constraints, my career path hasn’t exactly been linear or intentional. Most work visas have expiration dates, and until very recently, these expiration dates determined a lot of my career decisions. Before joining Data & Society, I was a researcher of online far-right extremism for about three years, but I didn’t originally set out to research anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric online. I went to graduate school for public policy, and became really interested in political media research. More specifically, in the ways that politicians engage with the media to get narratives through and in the ways media coverage influences policy priorities.
After graduating, I was hired at a media watchdog nonprofit, and while initially I mostly researched immigration coverage on cable news, the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric in the 2016 presidential race influenced my interest in tracking whether it influenced or matched online extremist rhetoric, or vice versa. Data & Society has made huge contributions to the research on media manipulation, the perils of amplification, and the effect of alternative influence networks on YouTube, issuing publications that were crucial in orienting my own understanding of the informational ecosystem. That is why I was drawn to the opportunity of joining Data & Society’s Disinformation Action Lab in 2019, where we apply what we know and understand about the way mis- and disinformation get amplified online to support civil rights organizations and safeguard public data infrastructure from targeted communications threats.
If I could offer any advice to folks with similar career paths, it would be to nurture relationships in networks of people doing similar research as you are. To really nurture them in a personable, “I want to get to know you” way, and not an extractive way. When research gets hard or lonely, or the job market gets challenging, it is the people in these networks who are empathetic and supportive. It was through a network of women who do disinformation research that I heard about Data & Society in the first place.
— Senior Research Analyst Cristina López G.
It’s daunting to figure out the next step of our careers, especially in a world that obsesses over productivity and success. In order to build something that we can really be proud of, we need to first determine what it is we value, which spaces and communities are doing work that mirrors those values, and be intentional about entering those spaces and seeking out that work. It’s hard to network without feeling like a leech, but if we’re engaging a community we deeply care about and want to contribute to, those conversations and relationships will be easier and come more naturally. Determining all these factors and building meaningful relationships takes time, effort, and even mistakes. There is no one right way to engage a community or build a network, but the wrong way is to not try at all. Progress in finding our right next step can and should be a creative endeavor. It will also be very personal and at all different paces. The hardest part is starting!
Nazelie Doghramadjian is the Executive Assistant at Data & Society.
