NSF MRI: Decreasing the Probability of Rejection Jeanine Cook Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering New Mexico State University

History Very computationally intensive research, but no infrastructure to do it! Submitted white paper to VPR  assembled team Scrambled to get into QEM Elected PI (even though most junior) Began writing, based on what I learned at QEM  If you haven’t started writing, it’s not too late!

Advice Take good notes here  On the trip home, rewrite them in electronic form Do everything they tell you to do Don’t do what they tell you NOT to do!

The End!!!! Any Questions????

Our MRI Proposal Acquisition of computational infrastructure to support different types of modeling and simulation  Cardiac  Computer architecture  Fire  Chemical (phytoremeditation) TEAM: 2 Electrical Engineers, 1 Mechanical Engineer, 2 Physicists

Acquisition of a Large Beowulf Cluster for Research and Education in Science and Engineering Justify need for equipment  Specification of proposed equipment Intellectual merit  Research Description Results from prior NSF support Project plan  Research  Education Management plan Broader impact  Impact of infrastructure

Justify Need for Equipment - 1 Describe need based on research objective  Describe specific performance requirements in context of resource demands to perform specific research How many FLOPS to get research done before you die???

Justify Need for Equipment - 2 Describe existing resources and limitations  Are there resources on campus or in the vicinity? List them and their specifications  Do you have/can you get access? What limitations on this access that hinder your research? Also include access restrictions in equipment specification table From this, equipment specification should easily fall out and be justified!

Justification for Equipment - 3 Justify through not only research, but also education  Students will learn to operate and use state- of-the-art equipment Will increase the value of their education and value in job market

Intellectual Merit: Research Description MRI proposals reviewed based on same old two criteria  Intellectual Merit  Broader Impact Of research Of having this equipment on your campus Each member of team wrote brief description of their research

Results from Prior NSF Support If you are junior faculty, may not have results from prior NSF funding.  Seek out another more senior faculty member who may benefit from having same equipment and recruit them to be an investigator

Project Plan Research  Have solid plan/timeline When do you expect to order the equipment? When do you expect it to be operational? When do you expect initial research results to be generated? Education  What student population will be involved using equipment? Undergraduates, graduates????  Will it be used for course work as well as research?  What about training? Wokshops/tutorials User meetings/research

Management Plan - 1 Have firm plan on how use of equipment will be managed  How will time/utilization be shared among investigators?  What about investigator collaborators? Will they have access??  How will equipment be maintained? (Even after award period??) Budget for maintenance Budget for costs to house equipment  Air conditioning  Cooling

Management Plan – 2 Will equipment be available to other faculty and students after award period? Sometime during award period?  For research and education?  How will this be managed? Through proposal process??  Who will review these?  Will there be a fee?

Broader Impact of Infrastructure - 1 What impacts will acquiring this equipment have? Who will be impacted?  Investigators will be able to perform earth- shattering research that otherwise would go undone  Will other faculty, staff, students benefit from this equipment? List potential users across campus List potential courses that may utilize equipment

Broader Impact of Infrastructure - 2 What diverse populations will benefit?  Ethnic minorities  Women  Persons with disabilities Be sure to include statistics from significant minority programs on campus which may draw student/faculty participants  AGEP  AAMP  ADVANCE  RASEM Many of these are supported by NSF!!!

General Advice to Avoid Problems - 1 If you assemble a team  Be sure you really know who you’re working with and that personalities and objectives don’t clash Even though it’s not necessarily collaborative research, you will be affiliated with co-investigators at least for the duration of the award

General Advice to Avoid Problems - 2 Specifying equipment when working with team  Have everyone specify requirements and equipment  Assimilate requirements and equipment specs into list of options  Define decision-making process Democratic vote? PI gets the last say? Unbiased stakeholder helps decide?

General Advice to Avoid Problems - 3 Start the budget early  Get quotes from vendors that include educational pricing Warning: If they know what your budget is, that’s what the equipment will cost! Create a budget that is darn close to the average award size (not possible in all cases)  NSF may ask you to revise budget to close to average award size

General Advice to Avoid Problems - 4 On final budget  Make sure that vendor has addressed every detail of options on equipment  Anything that the vendor states that they’ll “throw in”, get it in writing  Save all correspondence during the quotation process  Don’t forget to leave some time for sole source justification if necessary Purchasing department can help Vendor can help  If you need more money, ask Research Center VPR Dean If you just brought in $250K, they will likely help if reasonable amount of extra funds are needed.

Good Luck!