The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant is the NSF's most prestigious award bestowed on outstanding tenure-track faculty members to support their exceptional research and educational activities. This proposal proposes to organize the 2016 NSF CISE CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop in Arlington, VA on April 4, 2016. It is expected that 200 junior faculty will attend this workshop, including a significant portion of attendees from HBCU/MEI and under-represented groups. At the early stage of their academic careers, many junior faculty have lacked grant-writing experience, which could lead to an unsatisfactory presentation of their research and education activities. To address this problem, this workshop will allow junior faculty to obtain first-hand experiences through the combination of a number of interactive activities with recent CISE CAREER awardees and NSF program directors.
The one-day workshop will consist of the presentations on CISE CAREER solicitation, talks given by recent CAREER awardees, mock panels, as well as program-specific discussions with NSF program managers. The opportunities to interact with NSF program managers will be valuable to junior faculty in developing competitive CAREER proposals.
The workshop is open to all CAREER-eligible principal investigators in NSF-supported disciplines at U.S. universities and colleges. Preferences will be given to junior faculty in CISE-related disciplines. About 200 junior faculty are expected to attend. A number of fellowships will be given to junior faculty from HBCU/MEI and under-represented groups, including women. This will provide necessary travel support for those faculty to attend the workshop. The presentations by recent CISE CAREER awardees will be podcasted online and the slides and videos will be available on the workshop website for other faculty who might not be able to attend the workshop in person. This will ensure the workshop to achieve a broader impact among junior faculty within the CISE community.
By attending the workshop, junior faculty will have a better understanding of the NSF CAREER program and obtain valuable insights from the CAREER awardees and NSF program managers. The mock panel and program-specific breakout sessions will also provide constructive feedback to junior faculty. This workshop will help prepare junior faculty in CISE-related disciplines to develop outstanding research and education activities at their universities and write competitive CAREER proposals.
