CAREER: Planning and Writing a
Competitive NSF CAREER Proposal
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
Kenneth J. Loh
Associate Professor
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Nano-Engineering and Smart Structures Technologies (NESST) Laboratory
NSF/CMMI CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
University of Maryland, College Park
April 8, 2014
Disclaimer
There is no secret formula…
I am just like you…
I will do my best to share with you
my experiences and the important
steps along the way
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Why the NSF CAREER Proposal?
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It’s not that good of a deal…
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Possibilities offered by an NSF CAREER award:
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In my time, $400K over five years or $80K per year (less than an unsolicited grant)
Takes considerable more effort to plan and write
Steady stream of funding for five years
Supplement awards eligibility
Institutionalize new education and outreach programs
Other benefits:
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More visibility
Tenure
Recognition
Investment for the future
PECASE eligibility
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Multi-dimensional Approach
6. Start the conversation
TOP-DOWN
7. Find the right program
8. Plan the big stuff
9. Go make some friends
10. Communicate your
vision
11. Ask for help
RESEARCH
NSF CAREER
Proposal
EDUCATION
5. Why you?
4. What’s missing?
3. What’s your long-term goals?
2. What’s your passion?
1. Who are you?
BOTTOM-UP
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BOTTOM-UP APPROACH
Questions that you should be asking yourself
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Bottom-up: 1. My Personal Roadmap
Birth :: Urbana, IL
GK-12 :: Taipei, Taiwan
• Chi-Chi Earthquake (Sept. 21, 1999)
Johns Hopkins University :: Baltimore, MD
B.S. in Civil Engineering (2004)
• Urban damage detection using the synthetic aperture radar
University
of Michigan
Annsensors
Arbor,
• Bridge monitoring
using wireless::MEMS
(UCMI
Irvine REU)
M.S. in Civil Engineering (2005) & M.S. in Materials Science & Engineering (2008)
Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (2008)
• Carbon nanotube-based thin films for structural health monitoring
University of California :: Davis, CA
Assistant Professor (2009 – 2014)
Associate Professor (2014 – present)
• Nano-Engineering & Smart Structures Technologies (NESST) Laboratory
• Multifunctional materials and structural health monitoring research
6/26
Bottom-up: 1. My CAREER Roadmap
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2009, January: Assistant Professor at UC Davis
2009, April: Decided to submit CAREER proposal (one of my first proposals)
2009, July: Proposal submitted
2009, December: Proposal rejected
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2010, January: Prepared and applied for NSF CAREER Proposal Workshop
2010, February: Rewrote and resubmitted CAREER as unsolicited proposal
2010, March: Attended workshop
2010, June: Unsolicited proposal awarded
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Sadness followed…
Hope followed…
2011, July: Began proposal preparation and getting new preliminary results
2012, July: New CAREER proposal submitted
2012, December: Proposal awarded
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Bottom-up: 2. My Passion
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Ask yourself these questions:
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What’s more important than sleep?
What makes you want to skip a meal?
What drives you to work those extra hours during the weekend?
What fundamental research areas or problems are you passionate about?
Structural
Engineering
Solve large-scale
problems that
mattered to the world
Materials
Science
Materials are
everywhere, and it’s
how we interact with
the world
Biochemistry
Controls the innerworkings of the
world
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Bottom-up: 2. Discovering My Passion
Citywide damage
assessment via
satellite imaging
UG
Wireless sensors
for structural
health monitoring
FOUNDATION
FOR FUTURE
UG/MS
RESEARCH AND
EDUCATION
Densely
distributed
passive wireless
sensors
MS/PHD
Carbon nanotube
thin films for spatial
damage detection
PHD
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Bottom-up: 3. Long-term Goals
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What are your long-term goals?
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Think 10 to 15 years ahead
Consider research and education – are they integrated too?
Write strategic plan for your career (and then change it later)
NSF CAREER award should be a major enabling mechanism that will help you
attain your research and educational goals
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Bottom-up: 4. Knowledge Gaps
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Identify scientific advancements needed or knowledge gaps
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Necessary for transitioning from current state-of-art to your long-term goal
What is the need for research and students (education)?
Identify the progression of science or future trends/needs
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Bottom-up: 5. Why You?
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Present compelling argument why you are uniquely positioned for solving that
particular scientific problem
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Use space in your project description
Relate your past and current research to your proposed project
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TOP-DOWN APPROACH
Reach out, ask questions, and write a
responsive, integrated, research and education
proposal
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Top-down: 6. Start the Conversation
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Interact with NSF through different opportunities:
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NSF CAREER proposal writing workshop (check!)
Physically go there and visit different program managers
E-mail (maybe call) program managers
Volunteer to serve on review panels
Interact with program managers at conferences
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Top-down: 7. Find the Right Program
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One of the most important qualities about any proposal is responsiveness
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NSF CMMI website: http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=CMMI
Read synopsis of each program and determine fit
Can always meet, e-mail, or call program manager to learn more
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Top-down: 8. Plan the Big Stuff
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Formulate your research question
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If question were to be answered, it should bring you closer to your long-term goal
Hypothesis-driven and/or scientific research questions
Include research, education, and outreach objectives
Identify main tasks or milestones that need to be achieved to address goal
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Present CLEAR objective for each task
Organize tasks in LOGICAL fashion
Do these tasks FIT within your proposed timeline of five years and budget?
JUSTIFY that you are able to perform these tasks
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Top-down: 8. Feasibility
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Eliminate reviewers’ skepticism by providing adequate preliminary results
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Position yourself as: “high-risk, high-reward…but feasible”
Clearly identify assumptions and what you are ignoring
Getting preliminary results for your proposal means starting very early
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Top-down: 9. Go Make Some Friends
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Identify collaborators that are absolutely necessary for project success
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Setting up meetings or calls to get letters of collaboration (takes a lot of time)
Department Chair letter
Meet with Associate Dean(s)
Support from Dean
Resource planning/budget
Leverage existing resources
Campus programs/groups
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Top-down: 10. Read Before You Write
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Before you start to write anything, read the CAREER solicitation (14-532)
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PI eligibility (three tries)
Tenure-track assistant professor
No Co-PIs allowed
Deadlines for certain divisions
Project title: “CAREER: …”
Page limits
Broader impact and intellectual merit
Project summary
Project timeline
Previously $400,000 budget (exact)
Department letter
Letter of support (1 page maximum)
Data management plan (see GPG)
Post-doctoral scholar mentoring plan
Cost-sharing is prohibited
Etc…
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Top-down: 10. Who is Your Audience?
REVIEW PANEL
Multidisciplinary
reviewers
Believers
versus nonbelievers
Your
competition
Junior, midcareer, and
senior
faculty
Overcommitted
versus uncommitted
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Top-down: 10. Write for Your Audience
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Proposal needs to speak out to three levels of reviewers:
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Quick read
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1. High-level
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2. Overall
content
Reading a magazine article
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3. Your
‘buddies’
Is proposal aligned to agency?
Quickly flip through
Will not read carefully
Knowledgeable, but not expert
Logical and comprehensive?
Does your plan make sense?
Detailed checking
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Colleagues and competitors
Technical experts
Detail-oriented
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Top-down: 10. Psychology of Reviewers:
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Proposal reviewed based on ‘intellectual merit’ and ‘broader impact’
IM
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Greatest likelihood of funding
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Top-down: 10. Start Writing!
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Important points to remember when writing:
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State and explain your long-term goal, objectives, and hypotheses
Be clear and concise, not overly verbose
Explain your methods and assumptions
Answer the ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’
Make it visually appealing (think magazine)
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Top-down: 11. Ask for Guidance
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There’s a lot of value in having your colleagues and friends review your draft
proposal (but grow a thick skin)
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Friends, colleagues, or collaborators
Recent CAREER awardees (probably ones that you know well)
Department Chair
Other considerations:
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Request successful and unsuccessful CAREER proposals
Serve on a CAREER panel (rare but possible)
24/26
Presentation Summary
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Vision: The long-term career goal of the PI is to drive innovative research and
and to train outstanding personnel for maintaining and escalating United States’
role as the global leader in both research and education
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Objective: As a step towards this goal, the objective of this talk is two-fold…
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Conduct potentially transformative, high-risk, high-reward research
Prepare students for careers in a multidisciplinary, competitive, future job landscape
Develop and mentor outstanding young faculty
To share my lessons learned during the PI’s CAREER proposal planning, writing, and
reviewing stages
To test the hypothesis that workshop attendees will be more successful (statistically
significant) at winning NSF CAREER awards in the next five years
Assessment: participant data will (hopefully) be tracked by NSF
Scope:
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Present to you important elements in planning and writing an NSF CAREER proposal
Use the PI’s planning process and proposal for illustrating specific techniques
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Acknowledgements
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
The PI thanks the National Science Foundation for the support
of his research and the opportunity to give this talk
This presentation would not have been possible without the
help from:
Previous NSF CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
Attending other proposal writing workshops
Mentors, role models, colleagues, and friends
Program managers at NSF and other agencies
Anyone who has given me advice or suggestions… 