Also (as someone with a PhD in a PL-related area) I think the effort to implement a real programming language and drive adoption is a much more significant cont

Also (as someone with a PhD in a PL-related area) I think the effort to implement a real programming language and drive adoption is a much more significant contribution than writing a dozen academic papers describing the theory behind its features. The academic research is helpful but often people say "not a new idea" and imply that the real work was done by whoever first wrote down the idea, which is often quite wrong IMHO.