Diego Mastroianni, Senior Services Strategist
Diego Mastroianni graduated with a PhD in Management Information Systems in 2016. He now works as a Senior Services Strategist at Moody鈥檚 Analytics听
Q: What made you interested in pursuing a PhD?听
I鈥檇 been working for a few years before the PhD and I had an engineering background. I knew a lot about how information systems worked, but I wanted to think about systems from a different perspective鈥攎ore social science and management. And, I also had the idea at the time of pursuing an academic career. I wanted to switch to becoming an academic researcher. That was my goal at the beginning of the PhD.
Q: What do you currently do?
I work for a company called Moody鈥檚 Analytics. I do research and software solutions for risk management. I design services that are more standardized to reduce the implementation time. So, instead of having the client say, 鈥淚 want you to do this, this, and this for me,鈥� I can say 鈥渇or the project that you鈥檙e doing, I think you need this package.鈥� The role is called senior services strategist.听
Q: How did you end up working outside academia?
I dedicated four years full-time to the PhD. After year three or four, I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of the PhD program. However, I didn鈥檛 see myself doing it for the rest of my life. I saw colleagues graduating and their lives were getting even more miserable than when they were in the PhD program. Publication pressures were very high and began to undermine the entire academic freedom idea. Honestly, I actually have much more freedom in my work than I ever had in academia. In my fourth year, there was an opportunity to go back to the company where I used to work. I went back and for two years I did both; I did the PhD and worked. For the PhD, it actually made me more productive, because I treated it like a project and was very disciplined.
Q: Did you learn anything worthwhile during your PhD that you鈥檙e using in your current job?听
I did learn a lot of things in the PhD. I really learned to read; you read it in a different manner when you have so much volume and density and it鈥檚 a different kind of literature. You are trained to look at a paper and see flaws. I became skeptical of anything I read. Having read all of these papers, sometimes they still help me navigate through situations. A lot of this stuff actually helped me to understand the environment I was in and to how to behave and how to run my projects more effectively. I really don鈥檛 regret having done it. I don鈥檛 think it was a waste of time or effort to do the things that I really wanted to do.
Q: Did you face any challenges?
Looking back, the main challenge was realizing鈥攁nd the entire process of realizing鈥攖hat the academic life was not for me. And then making the decision that I was actually leaving, and that was OK. It鈥檚 not a failure. I gave myself the gift of better mental health and stopped myself from living with somebody else鈥檚 expectation of me. Coming to grips with that is a long process. It鈥檚 not overnight.
Q: Did your supervisor and your colleagues understand why you wanted to work in industry?听
Industry is a dirty word. I think what bothers me is the taboo thing鈥搕hat we can鈥檛 talk about it. But if you think about it, there are so many PhD students who will agree. Even if you consider a ratio of 1:1 between professors and PhD students鈥攁nd in reality it is at least double that number鈥攊t鈥檚 still as if every five years you鈥檙e doubling the number of PhDs in the market and still saying, yes, we have enough positions in the universities for everyone. Of course we don鈥檛. It鈥檚 great that some people manage it, but it鈥檚 as if that鈥檚 the only way. And then, if you don鈥檛 succeed in academics, it鈥檚 as if your life is not worth living. I鈥檓 exaggerating the situation, but it is a hard topic. It was something that you would talk about in private with people and most of them would understand, but there was hardly any open discussion about it.听
Q: Do you still think we need critical thinkers and problem solvers in industry who understand the academic perspective?
Absolutely. Though, I have to say, in industry, I sometimes get asked, 鈥渨hat are you doing here if you鈥檙e a PhD?鈥� Some people call me Dr. Diego鈥搃t鈥檚 not like in academia where everybody鈥檚 a doctor! So, I guess they find it amusing or different. I鈥檒l always be an odd duck no matter where I go. That鈥檚 me. My space is in between. I鈥檓 a foreigner here and I鈥檒l be a foreigner there, but, actually, I鈥檓 able to talk to both those worlds and bring them together.