From what I understand, you don't need a PhD to contribute to research and be impactful, depending on the subject. However, most people that do end up having on

From what I understand, you don't need a PhD to contribute to research and be impactful, depending on the subject. However, most people that do end up having one. I know a few people whose hobby is independent research and they don't have PhD's and yet their work is very interesting and could one day make an impact. For example, there's Ben from Lunar Homestead (https://lunarhomestead.com/ https://lunarhomestead.com/) who presented his work (SPORE) at the Moon Society's last conference. He's done quite a job at educating himself and you wouldn't know he wasn't certified unless he told you. He's proud of it though and tends to tell people that education and contribution to science is something you can achieve if you put your mind to it. If you want to be in a research position alone, I don't know what to say. There's jobs around that let you work closely with researchers as an engineer. I've been seeing a lot of those around lately here in Iowa, especially concerning crops. Otherwise, the alternative is to monetize your research but then you'll be doing a LOT more than research. Research would probably be 10% after all is said and done.