NSF CAREER PROPOSAL

1. NSF CAREER PROPOSAL Experiential Perspective by SanjuktaBhanja Presented in NSF CISE Workshop at Arizona State University Many Resources: www.clarku.edu/offices/research/pdfs/NSFProposalWritingTips.pdf Google hits: 1,300,000

2. My Datapoint • Third time Lucky • Between 1st and 2nd trial, significant changes made • 2nd and 3rd: Almost no change • During the first trial, I taught 1-1 courses/semesters • During second and third, I taught 2-2 courses/semester

3. First Proposal: Self Assessment • Cross-layer modeling targeting switching and error • Too close to my PhD work (already funded by NSF) • Too focused on one problem on research • Teaching plans were established

4. Between First and Second • Meeting with Dr. Basu (my division program director) • His feedback (CAREER proposal needs to focus on multiple problems in a general direction) • Needs to launch a career as opposed to solution to one research problem • Already started working on both CMOS and beyond-CMOS devices • Created better publication record

5. Second Attempt • Focused on CMOS logic • Trade-off between reliability-error and power • Used Learning Automata and • Bayesian Network • Added Thermal errors • Also started working on Quantum Cellular Automata • Quantum-aware error-reliability and power models • Found a few external mentors in my area

6. Third Attempt • Publication records improved beyond second. • Almost every component of near-term objectives preliminary data was published. • Letters from industry and Academia • Two of my peer read the proposal and suggested a few non-technical but critical flow changes • Reduce some of the dimensions to cover more depth in each dimension • Pictures became much better

7. General Guidelines • With large grains of salt (subjective) Six Blind Men and the Elephant (Illistration from Pawyi Lee, northeastern Thailand)

8. Research Planning (1) • Develop track-record in multiple research thrusts • Publishing some of the preliminary research is important • Data made available in the proposal • This is key for providing confidence to a panelist not working exactly in your area • should have potential to launch a career much beyond 5 years • Tasks should be closely coupled

9. Research Planning (2) • Have balance between a few near term and far term goals • It should not read as condensed version of three/four proposals. • Should have right balance of fundamentals and significance • Has to have a challenging non-trivial component (non-translational) • Balance between risk (ambitious) and reasonability (feasible)

10. Educational Research (Planning) • Education : program-sensitive • Developing a new course is OK (too common) but • Preferable • Integrating research into education • Propose and document a successful teaching in your classes • Working on an instrument to measure some of the well-known techniques might be great • Create a portfolio (teaching) • Helpful also for mid-tenure and tenure

11. Outreach (Planning) • Find local resources available for broadening participation, visiting K-12 teachers classroom in GA teach-in • Get involved if you can with local 4 year college faculties • Participate in SLOAN, McKnight conference • Essentially plan on getting a track-record • Some letters supporting existing work might be helpful

12. Networking • Target a few conferences where you send papers, attend and network every year. • Find a few external mentors; could be CAREER award winners in your division in recent years • Visit your program manager • Receive Feedback from peer

13. Writing • Do not let a panelist surf for contribution: • Particularly important for Intellectual merit, research objectives, task setsand educational goals • Clearly state the significance and intellectual merit • Many proposals have preliminary results in research but no track-record towards the educational component and broader impact.

14. Focus on Scientific Merit • NSF panelists are against any tone that sounds translational • A fundamental scientific theme has to emerge with huge significance. • Clearly differentiate between your proposal and existing state of the art • Enough support from preliminary data (your own work)

15. Excitement • Writing should capture excitement/ enthusiasm • Avoid a laundry-list of tasks coupled with each other • Make a case as soon as possible • Do not introduce a key excitement at 5th page • 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th are in general reserved for fundamental theoretical techniques but the importance of using that amount of rigor needs to be justified in page 1 or 2 and if possible in summary

16. Support Letters • Getting support letters would be critical • Excitement shown by a peer and willingness to collaborate would help • Chairs letter: An opportunity to get release time for your research (important for those who somehow had less negotiations during hiring) • Some common practices in support letter are extremely obvious to panelists

17. Breadth vs Depth • Career proposal should launch a career beyond the five years. So • CAREER Proposal would have to be broader than regular proposal. • Depth vsBreadth • Tricky due to page budget • One of my mentor’s feedback: “You have a very strong 20 page proposal but an extremely condensed 15 pages”

18. Pause • After writing the first complete draft, give a break of at least seven days. • Read and edit again • Pause • Read and Edit again • This is particularly true of those of you that gets upset reading their own paper after the paper appeared in print.

19. Help • Get a technical writer to proof-read • Get a trusted peer to read • Ask if they understood the tremendous significance of your research. • I asked help from my My ex-dean to provide some feedback since he was in NSF earlier.

20. Untrue Assumptions • All the details would be read and understood • One need to propose 5 innovations (for 5 years) and then 5 more innovations for long term goals • If each innovationis discussed in 0.5 page ->this makes all the innovations look less rigorous • Guidelines are fixed between trials • Detailed guidelines in formatting can be ignored

21. Final draft • Pay special attention to figures and table captions. Usually first perception is formed after reading the summary and skimming over the proposal looking at figures and tables. • Have a good overview picture and great caption that details generic problem statement. • Large percentage of effort needs to be on the Summary • Get someone to judge the proposal by reading the summary and skimming through the tables and figures

22. Second and Third time • After each failure, take an appointment with your program officer to capture panel feedback beyond panel summary • Remember that panelists change, so take feedback of one trial with a pinch of salt but address issues that are relevant. • Definitely get feedback from a few colleagues (almost mandatory these days for multiple attempts)

23. Mentors • Have mentors outside your University • Mentors inside the department are great • Can support your case for less teaching and service load • You need mentors in your own area • These mentors can help as sounding board and can provide important suggestions for the proposal

24. Participate in a Panel • Effort as a PI and effort as a panelist are not exactly equal • Migration of proposals through HC-C-LC-DNC • This is also an unique opportunity that your competitors are fighting with each other to get you money.

25. Questions