5 reasons why I didn’t choose an R1

I cast a wide net this job market season. I wasn’t sure where the jobs would be, and I was pretty confident that things would be competitive (since the state of industry means more people who are on the fence about industry might become tempted by faculty positions). And the state of the US means that faculty positions overseas, I reckoned, would be especially competitive. But I’ve been planning to get into academia since I left industry in 2021, so I wanted to really examine all of the pros and cons of the different styles of academic life I could end up living. Research staff at an R1: I had already done research staff work back in 2017 and 2018 at Northwestern, and I wasn’t interested in that lifestyle. It didn’t pay great, but also had no job security (I survived a big culling they did in 2018, but that motivated me to look for employment elsewhere - if the pay is lower than industry but I’m still treated as expendable, like an industry job, then why stick around?). Research scientist at an R1: I could have looked for the few “research scientist” roles, at places like CMU, Stanford, and so on, where you just do research 24/7 and have your own grants and agenda, but the problem with those is that you have to have a very high output level before starting, which I don’t have. And pretty much all of the openings that I saw explicitly prioritize AI/ML research over everything else (because, of course, that’s where the money is at 🙄). TT research faculty at an R1 : Now, the tenure-track (TT) research faculty roles at R1s are tempting to me. You get tenure. That rules. And the bar for research output is lower than a pure research scientist role. And the bonus? You are expected to teach a little bit. (I love teaching.) This all seems great! And I’m sure that in an optimal environment, an R1 could be a good fit for me. However… let’s break down a few reasons why this kind of work isn’t ideal for what I want: 5 reasons that TT research faculty roles at an R1 aren’t ideal for me, personally 1. Funding The biggest reason that R1s became less of a priority to me happened due to all of the cuts in 2025. I watched the folks who do accessibility research at UW, UC Irvine, U Mich, and many other places lose funding. Stacy Branham, one of the people I look up to the most in our little corner of the world of research, who was the co-PI of the single-most impactful grant in accessiblity research in computer science (called AccessComputing), announced last year on Linkedin that the grant did not survive federal cuts. Research faculty positions at R1s are expected to produce significant amounts of research. If you look at the incredible career of Jen Mankoff (my absolute favorite person who does accessiblity/assistive tech/disability studies research), as an example, she has authored over 200 papers in the last 2 decades or so. In order to be this productive, you have to advise PhD students, whose entire “job” (aside from taking classes) centers on a joint pursuit of your research agenda and their own. Research faculty need PhD students. And they’re very expensive because of how higher ed works: admin takes a big cut of all your grant money, and then you also have to pay significant premiums for the cost of your PhD student’s education. Some PhD students cost as much as 140,000 USD per year! But with fewer opportunities for funding, especially since my entire agenda centers on inclusion of people with disabilities in data science work (which is an area the current federal administration has obliterated), that means that I will be under significant pressure to put out papers but might lack the students to help me accomplish my goals. I need to get tenure! But fewer grants means a worse tenure package and fewer grants also means fewer students, which means a lower output level. Not good! I don’t want to work 60, 70, 80 hours per week just to compensate for the state of things, most of which are beyond my control. And the worst part about having fewer funding opportunities? I would need to consider if my soul was worth selling out… should I look to defense funding? Should I bring the claws of corporate capitalism deeper into the academy than it already is? Mols Sauter shook me up last year, essentially letting me know that my existing corporate relationships make me out as someone basically already on the road to being an academia-destroying poser. (Mols was much nicer than this, of course, but the reality is that I’ve already demonstrated I’m willing to partner with powerful companies who have profit-based incentives in order to do my work. This does, to some degree, participate in the “corporate capture” of academia, threatening the spirit of true research activities.) And as an aside, Amy Ko (who I look up to immensely) had called me “very corporate” at SIGCSE’s workshop on accessibility just about 1 month and a half previous. I basically evaporated when she said this to me. (I needed a little self-awareness awakening, in this regard.) So by the time Mols brought into question my tenuous relationships with industry, I was already reeling hard from impostor syndrome and self-doubt in terms of both how “pure” I am as a researcher and the actual ethical impact that alternative funding has had on academia. And, as a little extra anxiety here: If I wanted to get a grant in accessibility… I now have to compete against the Stacy Branhams and Jen Mankoffs of the world, who are all also trying to get these big-dollar funds to help support their now-unfunded or under-funded armies of PhD students. I’d actually feel bad getting big grants, because there are real PhD students who need the support right now , as opposed to theoretical, future PhD students I’d hope to be able to support. 2. Underpaid workers And speaking of PhD students… they’re grossly underpaid! I actually don’t recommend that anyone does a PhD unless they’re already unionized. CMU has been horrible and our 2 attempts to unionize have failed. I still believe in the cause, but the US Department of Labor is now in the hands of a very anti-worker set of people, whose agendas will certainly smash any new union efforts. It’s going to be very hard to get a recognized union built in the next 3 years because of Trump and his ilk. So, I have to ask myself… do I really want to start a pyramid scheme? Especially one where the lower-order members of the pyramid aren’t unionized? If I actually wanted to run a top-down capitalistic scheme, I’d hope that my minions at least had fair pay and bargaining rights. I actually left industry because of a closely-related issue here: the only clear path forward in my career was “up.” ICs (“individual contributors”) hit obvious ceilings of pay and freedoms, while people who take managerial paths forward end up continuing up and up in perpetuity. But I don’t really like “managing.” I’ve even written extensively about how LLMs are essentially the perfect fantasy technology for managerial-aspiring people : you go from creating things to managing them. You cease to be a chef when you order from a menu. You cease to be an artist when you commission a piece. And I enjoy the act of research, building, making, and so on. I don’t really want a pyramid scheme in my future research lab, but without material equity, any culture or “vibes” I try to set won’t prevail. PhDs need fair pay, fair treatment, and… I also want to get hands-on with the work sometimes. ( Jeff Heer does this with projects like Vega and Mosaic, and I think his style of output would be entirely what I’d love to do someday, too. A mix of teaching/mentoring/advising… which is inescapably hierarchical due to a differential in expertise and experience, but also a mix of just doing things yourself, too, when you need to scratch the itch.) 3. Shallow evaluation of productivity This does segue into my next topic: how I work plays a huge role in whether or not I hit tenure. I have been speaking to Niklas Elmqvist over the last couple…