The Research Mosaic Analogy: The Mosaic Art Approach to a Dissertation and Research Portfolio
Sometimes, when people ask me what I think makes a good dissertation, the first thought that comes to mind is mosaic art. In my mind, a dissertation is like a mosaic art piece built from individual tiles, where each tile is an individual research project / paper.
I like this analogy — that a dissertation is like mosaic art — because it helps convey the following message: when focusing on each individual research project, a PhD student should feel empowered to focus just on that project. The PhD student does not need to think about their subsequent dissertation or even their overall career trajectory. My recommendation: Make each tile piece (each project / paper) beautiful and internally complete. After a few such projects, one will have a beautiful mosaic.
I find this perspective to be quite freeing, allowing one to focus on the present (the current project) rather than an overall dissertation or career, which may be years away.
Mosaic Art: Background.
For those unfamiliar with mosaic art, see this image below. The image below looks like a sea gull, but is built from a number of tiles.
If one were to zoom in on any individual tile, one would see that each tile is, itself, a complete image.
In more detail, the above image is from J2thawiki via Wikipedia. It was released under the CC BY-SA 2.5 license. According to the Wikipedia page for this mosaic, the main image in this mosaic was derived from “See through you” by Steve Jurvetson.
Context.
As context, in my discipline (computer security research), a PhD student might write and publish multiple individual research papers en route to completing a PhD. Then, their dissertation might be composed from those individual papers, sometimes with some of those papers omitted and with additional text or insights or results added.
The Research Mosaic Analogy and the PhD Process.
Thinking about a dissertation — or even an overall career — as a piece of mosaic art can be very freeing. As a beginning PhD student, a very natural question is:
- What will my dissertation be about?
After which, it can be very tempting to ask the question:
- What should the first project in my dissertation be?
After completing the first project, it can be very tempting to ask:
- What should the next project in my dissertation be?
And so on.
The reality is that it can be very, very hard for a beginning PhD student — or anyone — to chart a 5-year (or longer) research trajectory! And, consequently, it can be very demoralizing to try to answer the question “What should the first project in my dissertation be?”
Instead, an easier-to-answer question for a junior PhD student is:
- What project do I want to work on first?
Then, after completing that project, an easier-to-answer question is:
- What project do I want to work on next?
In each of the above two questions, the words “my dissertation” do not appear at all.
After a few projects, the PhD student can begin to assemble the tiles into a mosaic — a compelling, coherent story for their dissertation.
A senior PhD student, who has already completed two or more research projects (tiles), might start to see how the different tiles could fit together into a mosaic and, hence, might choose their final project or projects to complete the mosaic. At this point in their PhD career, thinking about an eventual dissertation is easier because a few projects have already been completed. Still, even for senior PhD students (or anyone senior, including faculty), once a project is chosen, I recommend focusing only on that project, without continually rethinking how that project might fit into a larger portfolio.
Does the Research Mosaic Approach Really Work?
Sometimes the question arises: Does the research mosaic approach really work? For example, a PhD student might wonder: what if I end up with a bunch of disconnected tiles that don’t really fit together into a mosaic?
In my experience, this approach always works. The reason is simple: if a student chooses projects that they care about and believe in, then the projects are, by definition, connected. They are connected through the PhD student’s own interests and passions. Thus, while it may sometimes require thought to find a compelling mosaic for a given set of tiles, at least in my experience, one can always find such a mosaic.
As hints for possible tile combinations, one might encounter the following types of situations:
- Three tiles, all about the same topic but leveraging different methods ⇒ The dissertation might be focused on that topic.
- Three tiles, all about different topics but leveraging similar methods ⇒ The dissertation might be focused on the application of those methods to different topics.
- Three tiles, each about a different topic and each using a different method ⇒ The dissertation might step back and reflect upon the broader context in which those three topics are important (e.g., the three topics might be thematically related in the context of different emerging technologies or in that they all study different but important populations) and might explore how different methods might be used in different circumstances, to achieve different outcomes.
While generic and abstract, I hope that the above bullets convey the wide diversity and variety of dissertation structures possible, and that as long as a researcher themselves finds value in working on each tile individually, they will be able to find a common thread or threads to tie the tiles together.
I write more about the diversity of approaches for constructing a PhD dissertation in my post on “the PhD bubbles diagram”, which is a response to the now-classic PhD bubble diagram appearing in “The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.”
For later in one’s research career.
The research mosaic analogy can be useful to keep in mind throughout one’s research career. For example, for a PhD student preparing research-focused job applications, they will likely need to write a research statement that reflects upon the body of their PhD works. This research statement is a mosaic.
Similarly, when an assistant professor goes up for promotion to associate and when an associate professor goes up for full, they will write a research statement. This research statement is also a mosaic.
Just as it can be stressful for a junior PhD student to try to envision a future dissertation, it can be stressful for a junior assistant professor to think about promotion and their tenure case. Thus, to junior professors, I would also suggest focusing on each research tile piece individually and not focus on questions like “what will my tenure dossier look like in N years?”
As one gets further into their careers, they may find that their tiles start to assemble into multiple, different mosaics. Sometimes the same tile will appear in multiple mosaics. And, just as with the PhD dissertation, sometimes some tiles will not be used in the ultimate mosaics, and that is okay, too.
Acknowledgements.
I learned so much about the PhD process from my own advisor, Mihir Bellare. After obtaining a faculty position, I continued to develop my own philosophy on advising and the PhD process through the advising my own PhD students. Much of my thoughts on advising and the PhD process have also been shaped through the co-advising of PhD students with UW Security Lab co-director Franziska Roesner. Thank you to all the students and postdocs that I have advised, past and present!
