Navigating a Career in Chemical Engineering: Insights from Jim Smay at OSU

1. My Perspective on a CAREER Jim Smay Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Oklahoma State University

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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? • Reviewers have 10+ proposals to review at a time When the horse is dead, get off. – author unknown

6. Things I did wrong and right on TM Failed Proposal Successful Proposal • Used “develop” throughout • Vague list of research and educational goals • Rambling background section • Focused on incremental improvements of process rather than on how improvements will yield new applications and/or solutions to new problems • Bad strategy to try and focus on colloidal assembly routes in general • Poor picture of how research will support career long goals • Replaced “develop” with “discover”, “investigate”, “explore”, … • Detailed, numbered list of goals and expected outcomes • Targeted background to highlight need for research • Better focus on applications enabled by investigating this manufacturing process • Centered on SFF process with target examples • Clear support of career goals

7. A picture is worth a thousand words Figure 3 (a) filling a neck with slurry (b) applying the slurry into neck region 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. • 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

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