Grant Writing for Early Career Scientists
About
The grant writing and review process can feel daunting and difficult to navigate for young investigators. Learn tips and best practices from experts on how to successfully craft a scientific proposal for federal grants, industry partnerships, and non-profit support. After short presentations from each panelist, there will be a live question and answer session with the audience. This Zoom webinar is free and open to the public.
Speakers
Dr. Brendan Abolins is currently an External Innovation Manager at Eastman, a role that enables him to identify and promote collaborations with groups outside of Eastman to accelerate internal initiatives. He conducted his doctoral work in chemistry at UC Berkeley, advised by Prof. K. Birgitta Whaley, where he wrote his thesis on the Theoretical Studies of Ultracold Dipolar Molecules focused on simulating cold condensed matter through the use of engineered interactions between strongly interacting molecules, with applications in quantum information. After graduation in 2014, Dr. Abolins joined Eastman as a computational chemist before joining Eastman's External Innovation group in 2020.
Dr. Frances Houle is a Senior Scientist in the Chemical Sciences and the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Divisions at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research utilizes both experimental and computational techniques to investigate the mechanisms of nanoscale interfacial, thin film, and droplet transformations. Additionally, she is the Deputy Director of the Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA) and has served as the Deputy Director for Science and Research Integration of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP). Prior to her current roles, Frances earned her B.A. in chemistry from the University of California at Irvine and PhD in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. After her PhD, her positions include postdoctoral fellow at LBNL and the UC Berkeley Chemistry Department; Research Staff Member at the IBM Research Division in San Jose, California; and Manager of Materials Development at InVisage Technologies, a startup company making nanoparticle-based image sensors that has been acquired by Apple. Frances has received a number of awards including the 2009 American Vacuum Society John A. Thornton Memorial Award and Lecture, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and Fellow of the AVS. She is active in professional service, and is currently a member of the Materials Research Society Board of Directors, and Chair of the APS Ethics Committee.
Dr. Michael (Mick) Pechan is the program manager for the Experimental Condensed Matter Physics program in the Materials Sciences and Engineering Division of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences at the U.S. Department of Energy. Before joining DOE in 2014, Dr. Pechan was a professor of Physics at Miami University (Ohio) from 1981 to 2014, where he served as Department Chair from 2001 to 2012. His research has focused on condensed matter magnetism, beginning with his doctoral work studying neutron scattering in rare earth materials and culminating with magnetodynamics and magnetostatics in nanoscale and spintronic materials utilizing magnetic resonance techniques. These activities have had longstanding support from BES, resulting in 56 journal articles and 28 MS theses. Dr. Pechan has also had visiting scientist appointments at Ames Lab, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Argonne National Lab and UC San Diego.
Professor Jenny Yang is currently an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2001 with the honor of Hypercube Scholar. She performed her doctoral studies in Inorganic Chemistry at MIT, where she received the Presidential Fellowship. After finishing her PhD in 2007, Dr. Yang joined the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) first as a postdoc then as a senior staff scientist in the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis EFRC. She was then appointed as a research scientist in the Molecular Catalysis group at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Caltech. She started her faculty position at the University of California Irvine in 2013, where she is now an associate professor of Chemistry. Her research focuses on inorganic electrocatalysts for the generation and utilization of chemical fuels. She was awarded the DOE-Early Career Award in 2014 and in 2019 she was awarded funding from the non-profit Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as part of a team targeting the capture and removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Organizers
- Timothy Goetjen, ICDC EFRC (chair)
- Eric Assaf, AMPED EFRC
- Eric Cueny, CHASE Hub
- Alec Follmer, LiSA Hub
- Pedro de Souza, CENT EFRC
- Yishu Wang, IQM EFRC
