Career Award Advice Brian Denton Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering North Carolina State University

My Background PhD in Operations Research from McMaster University in Canada (2000) Senior Engineer at IBM (2001-2005) Senior Associate Consultant at Mayo Clinic (2005-2007) New Faculty member, Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, NC State University, Starting Fall 2007

Warning The following are just my opinions and what worked for me. You should get advice from as many people as you can and then form your own opinions. I recommend talking to: Your NSF program director People that have served on CAREER panels in the past Faculty in your department

Things to do Be lucky  Read the proposal instructions very carefully Talk to your program director Go to the CAREER workshop Start early Send your proposal to people for advice, comments, and editing Write about what you really want to do Think BIG Take the education piece very seriously

Things to do Look at other people’s proposals Get strong letters of support Use section headings and figures to make it easy for the reviewer to “flip through” Think in terms of PhD theses, and include a lot of them Provide a very long range career plan Don’t worry if you aren’t successful. Most of the process is productive anyway.

Things NOT to do Wait until the last minute Make the scope too narrow or too broad Use technical language specific to your field Make the education plan too generic Submit before you are ready