Might I suggest the Maen Skymaster 38 MK III. A solid micro brand out of the Netherlands. Its a smaller Chrono, as per your spec. Would fill out that niche as well as being from a micro! Congrats on the PhD!

I understand that it might be unnecessary to use a watch. However, it's a massive pain to pull out the phone to check the time only to be distracted. A watch does it's job quickly and it's gets out of the way just as fast. That's worthwhile