My Perspective on a CAREER Jim Smay Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Oklahoma State University.
Download ReportTranscript My Perspective on a CAREER Jim Smay Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Oklahoma State University.
My Perspective on a CAREER Jim Smay Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Oklahoma State University Where to begin? • What do I have to offer the world? – B.S. in Mech. Eng., Ph.D. in Materials Science – Good at processing and direct writing of colloidal gels • What do I want to do? – Get funded to keep working on direct writing of colloidal gels – there are still lots of things to do, applications to pick, and its too much fun to stop! • Is there an NSF program that fits? – Manufacturing Machines & Equipment in DMII • What next…write down some rough ideas and call the program manager. My Conversation with George • • • • • • In a word – vexing I wanted clear answers to direct questions Step back from your specific idea Plan your career, not your CAREER Suggested a 5 year, 10 year, and career map Several days and drafts later I appreciated this advice • First person on the first page of project description • Reviewers like to see passion for a career. You must have long term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short term failures. – Charles C. Noble Set Goals • Establishing goals is all right if you don’t let them deprive you of interesting detours. – Doug Larson • My goals: (i) 5, 10, career plan, (ii) specific research goals in this first 5 years, (iii) education goals in this first 5 years - integration • 1st submission – 6 lines, 3rd person – failure • 2nd submission – 22 lines, 1st person – success Map out your life, but do it in pencil. – Jon Bon Jovi Technical Merit One does a whole painting for one peach and people think just the opposite --that that particular peach is but a detail. – Pablo Picasso • Be direct about your goals – bullets, lists, etc. • Clearly state hypotheses, methods, and expected results • Tangible example applications a plus • Level of detail: too much, too little, just right? When the horse is dead, get off. – author unknown • Reviewers have 10+ proposals to review at a time Things I did wrong and right on TM Failed Proposal 1. Used “develop” throughout 2. Vague list of research and educational goals 3. Rambling background section 4. Focused on incremental improvements of process rather than on how improvements will yield new applications and/or solutions to new problems 5. Bad strategy to try and focus on colloidal assembly routes in general 6. Poor picture of how research will support career long goals Successful Proposal 1. Replaced “develop” with “discover”, “investigate”, “explore”, … 2. Detailed, numbered list of goals and expected outcomes 3. Targeted background to highlight need for research 4. Better focus on applications enabled by investigating this manufacturing process 5. Centered on SFF process with target examples 6. Clear support of career goals A picture is worth a thousand words • When reviewing proposals, I find images and schematics to be extremely useful • Mental image and actual process/experiment/device are not usually the same • I took a lot of care to draw high quality schematics • When possible (and relevant) I used images from my own work (a) (b) ~5mm (c) (d) 1mm 5mm nozzle nozzle nozzle 1mm Figure 1 Structures fabricated by PI from Pb(Zr,Ti)O3: (a) solid block from space filling layers, (b) as-dried high aspect ratio wall structure, and (c) and (d) sintered linear and radial 3-D lattice structures. (a) (b) angled deposition nozzle L nozzle motion oil bath h=2C*R EBRD work piece R filling slurry EBRD work piece object Figure 3 (a) filling a neck with slurry (b) applying the slurry into neck region Education • Qualifications as an educator – research assistant? • Develop a new course and train grad students is par for the course • I spent some time reviewing education literature • I explored existing programs at OSU – OK-LSAMP; sponsored by NSF – HBL4u - http://waves.okstate.edu/ • I learned a lot from observing others and reading successful CAREER proposals • I wanted a minority outreach program to be part of my CAREER development plan Education - strategy • Demonstrate that you’ve thought about how to be a better teacher and that you have a plan of action • Be specific about education objectives and quantify where possible • I focused on the dual role of a university educator as an instructor and mentor • Obligatory new course development • State examples of how your research may find its way into or, at least, inspire your lectures in other classes • Focus on development of human resources • Minority participation theme was focused on one of Oklahoma’s great assets – a large Native America population • Found a Native America high school to work with to implement a program to introduce students to OSU research • Got letters of collaboration from high school principle and OKLSAMP director Other tidbits • Get letters of “collaboration” from academics and industry • Get someone else to read your proposal and take their criticism to heart • Know when to ignore advice/criticism • Follow the format – period • Get your CV in order – reviewers usually look first at your resume to see your qualifications for doing the work • Make your proposal readable – avoid too much technical detail (equations) unless it is absolutely necessary • Mother test – if my mom can read my project summary and then be able to tell me what I am proposing, I count it a successful summary • Propose an appropriate amount of work for the budget, but be a little ambitious \4