About DissertationPath

DissertationPath started because of my wife. I watched her go from earning her Associate's degree, to her Bachelor's, then her Master's, and finally taking on the massive challenge of a PhD. Seeing the sheer amount of planning, deadlines, and moving pieces involved in a dissertation made me want to build something that could actually help.

Keeping track of milestones, dependencies between tasks, and shifting timelines is genuinely hard — especially when you're also doing the actual research. I wanted to make a tool that takes some of that organizational weight off so students can focus on the work that matters.

I'm Dustin Newkirk — an IT professional by day and a tinkerer by nature. I've spent my career in end-user support and systems administration, currently working for New York State ITS. Outside of work, I build web projects, run a homelab with 50+ Docker containers, and write about tech on my blog.

I've always enjoyed building things that solve real problems for real people. DissertationPath is one of those projects — born out of a genuine need I saw firsthand, built from scratch by one person who cares about getting it right.

DissertationPath is a modern web application built with the tools I trust and use daily:

Have feedback, a feature idea, or just want to say hi? I'd love to hear from you.