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I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas for how I can approach an ongoing situation.

4 years ago, when I was in the second year of my PhD I attended a conference and, in the normal course of things, I talked about my future dissertation plans with the panel's chair over drinks after the conference was over. Fast forward to today, and that panel chair, who was writing a dissertation on another subject in another century when we met, has just published a dissertation on that exact same topic, despite the fact that they had never heard of it prior to our meeting (sorry to be so vague but I am, I think understandably, paranoid). My master's thesis, which is on the same topic, is cited in the dissertation, but there's otherwise no mention of the fact that they never would have come to the subject without our meeting.

I had caught wind of what was going on a couple of years ago before this person's disseration was published and approached my advisor about it, but while they were shocked, they recommended just keeping my head down and going about my business. After all, at that point I wasn't 100 percent sure they would be covering the exact same ground as I was, and seeing as I came to the topic first, the idea was that my work would be superior even if there was some overlap.

Having seen their dissertation (although I can hardly bear to read it, I'm so infuriated) I do think that my work is of far better quality, but this person has hit on several topics, authors, texts, works, etc. that were/are to be central to my own dissertation and I'm wondering if it's too late for me to try and cry foul somehow.

In order to put my stamp on the topic I have worked to publish parts of my dissertation and recently had an article accepted into one of the top journals in my field. Unfortunately, it will be years before it actually comes out and in the meantime my nemesis is out there on the job market and publishing similar work in lesser, but more time-efficient journals.

I'm aware that this is all sour grapes kind of stuff, but my frustration has gotten to the point where I'm sickly fantasizing about inevitably not getting a job in academia just so that I might have the freedom to call this person out without having to worry about looking unprofessional. In the meantime, though I'm curious to know if there's a way I could let this situation be known before this person ends up getting that rare prize that is a job on the back of my idea.

Thank you.

Sebastian Melmoth
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    I'm not quite clear on the timeline. Are you alleging that this person saw your dissertation before publishing his own and copied from it? Or that they merely chose to write their own dissertation on the same topic, covering some of the same areas that you told them you planned to cover, but doing their own research and writing their own words? The former is plagiarism, the latter is not. – Nate Eldredge Aug 15 '20 at 17:09
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    @NateEldredge, I agree. This doesn't sound like plagiarism. Talking "over drinks" about ideas doesn't put a stamp of ownership on them. And the OP was cited for things that had appeared. – Buffy Aug 15 '20 at 17:28
  • Hi Nate, thank you for your comment. I must admit that it would be the latter. Perhaps I should remove the "plagarism" tag. I was doing course work at the time I met this person but, from my master's thesis, which they were able to read online, I already had a clear direction of where I was heading and unfortunately spilled the beans. So no, this isn't plagarism so much as a breach in etiquette and, I would say, ethics. The best proof I can really offer is our names on the same conference panel proposal and the abrubt shift in this person's topic towards something mirroring my own research. – Sebastian Melmoth Aug 15 '20 at 17:30
  • So, they worked on a topic, knowing that it would overlap your work in progress. I agree it's not very nice, and ethically questionable, but I don't think most people would see it as crossing the line into "misconduct". What would you hope to accomplish by "calling them out"? If you're expecting that it will result in some sort of punishment or reduced career prospects for this person, I think that's very unlikely. – Nate Eldredge Aug 15 '20 at 17:38
  • I might add that, 2 years ago, before this person published their dissertation. I gave a conference presentation that was attended by a member of their dissertation committee. Work similar to mine (on an author whose relation to the broader topic of my/our topic was previously unkwown) then appeared in this person's dissertation. I don't think the committee member purposefully told this person to write on this new author (I'm not that paranoid or self-obsessed), but I would not be surprised if they talked about it, leading this person to then glom off more of my research. – Sebastian Melmoth Aug 15 '20 at 17:39
  • I suppose I understand that there's not much that can really be done, but I would hope that if, for example, I approached there advisor with this information, they might take it into consideration when writing recommendation letters and the like. Perhaps that's too optimistic. – Sebastian Melmoth Aug 15 '20 at 17:44
  • Yeah, I don't think that's likely. Keep in mind there is a general sense in academia that ideas and plans are not themselves of great value; the value is in actually doing the research to bring the idea to fruition. As such, "stealing ideas" is not viewed as a serious wrong, and people would say that this person is entitled to be judged on the value of the research he did, regardless of where the idea came from. – Nate Eldredge Aug 15 '20 at 17:53
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    It's also assumed that if you want to be the only one working on an idea, you will keep it to yourself until you're ready to publish; and conversely, that if you share an idea with someone, then unless there is an explicit understanding to the contrary, it's with the goal of encouraging them to take an interest in it and possibly do their own work on it. – Nate Eldredge Aug 15 '20 at 17:55
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    Instead of "plagiarism", I think the usual term for this situation would be that you were scooped. This site has a lot of other questions on the subject which you might like to browse. – Nate Eldredge Aug 15 '20 at 17:59
  • Thank you for the advice. I suppose I should've been protective of my ideas. I just wish I'd never gone to that conference. – Sebastian Melmoth Aug 15 '20 at 19:36

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