More Than a Paper: Lessons From an Award-Winning Research Project

Last fall, my first Ph.D. project, “Jäger,” was recognized with both a Distinguished Paper Award and a Distinguished Artifact Award at ACM CCS.

While the recognition was an incredible honor, the real value came from the lessons learned during the process. For any student starting their research journey, I wanted to share a few takeaways from the experience of taking an idea from a whiteboard to an award-winning paper and artifact.

Lesson 1: Tackle Problems People Actually Have

Our work started with a simple, universal frustration: robocalls. Grounding our research in a problem that affects millions of people daily gave the project a clear sense of purpose. It’s easy to get lost in purely theoretical questions, but focusing on a tangible, real-world issue provides constant motivation and a clear benchmark for success: does this actually help solve the problem?

Lesson 2: Build It to Believe It

The Distinguished Artifact award was, in many ways, more meaningful to me than the paper award. Theorizing is one thing; building a functional system that withstands real-world constraints is another. Creating the Jäger prototype forced us to confront messy engineering challenges and prove our approach was practical, not just plausible. The process of building something concrete deepens your understanding and makes your research infinitely more credible.

Lesson 3: Research is a Team Sport

Jäger would not exist without my collaborators, Varun Madathil and Sathvik Prasad, and my advisors, Dr. Bradley Reaves and Dr. Alessandra Scafuro. Every hard problem was solved through discussion, debate, and combining different perspectives. Don’t try to go it alone. Actively seek out collaboration—it’s the fastest way to find the flaws in your own thinking and build something better than you could on your own.

Lesson 4: The Real Work Happens in the Dead Ends

A final paper presents a clean, linear story. The reality is anything but. Our path was filled with failed experiments and dead ends that will never see the light of day. That’s not a sign of failure; it’s the definition of research. Pushing through that uncertainty is where the breakthroughs happen. The persistence required to navigate the “grind” is the most critical skill.

These awards are a welcome validation, but they are a snapshot of a long process. The real takeaways are the habits and principles that lead to good work. As I look towards graduating in 2026, these are the lessons I’ll be taking with me: find important problems, build real solutions, work with great people, and don’t be afraid of the grind.