Planning for your CAREER

1. Planning for your CAREER • Contents • Plan your contribution and how you will disseminate it • Have a “running game” and a “passing game” • Create a team and infrastructure that enable & sustain excellence • Have a teaching plan and make it fun • My personal experience • Background 1995 BSME – Iowa State 1997 MS – MIT 2000 Ph.D. – MIT 2000 Consultant 2001 MIT Faculty Wife & 2 kids (2½ year old and 4½ year old) 8 Graduate students 5 undergraduate students Prof. Martin L. Culpepper Rockwell International Asst. Prof. MIT Mechanical Engineering Precision Compliant Systems Lab culpepper@mit.edu

2. Where are you now? Where do you want to be: In 5 years? In 10 years? Why is it important? Who cares & will say so? How will you teach others? Undergrad Professional Community What will you do to cultivate under represented students? Why is your proposal suitable for the RFP? Questions, contributions, plans, facets

3. Your running game • A “running” game • The ability make small gains when they are needed • The ability to slug it out and make gains that keep you going • If your running game doesn’t work, everything else suffers • Tenacity, aggressiveness, scrappy • Making short gains that get the ball moving • Short gains add up to, or turn into big gains

4. Your passing game • A “passing” game: Making high-risk, high-payoff gains • Glory, honor, funding, recognition • Be creative, know the risks of success and failure • Plan so that you may take advantage of big plays • Don’t be left unable to capitalize, you’ll be worse off • Learn how your school handles IP/patents

5. Creating your research group • Create a team that enables & sustains excellence Kevin “Kevo” Lin - Micro/nano guru - The big play Chris “Don ” Dibiasio - Big hardware designer - Speed and accuracy Richard “Tiny” Timm - Big hardware designer - Bulldozer Dariusz “Diesel” Golda - Micro/nano guru - Bulldozer M.V. “K-man” Kartik - Big hardware designer - Speed and accuracy Shih-Chi “Mac daddy” Chen - Micro/nano guru - The big play Jon “JohnyBoy” Hopkins - Micro/nano guru - Bulldozer Amos “Big A” Winter - Big hardware designer - The big play

6. “Really” integrating education-research Actuator Mechanism Assemble Rcoil i Rwire + - Synthesis Geometric modeling Control Manufacture Team 1 Team 2 Team 3

7. What to look for Honest discussions Proactive, outreach Someone who shares “why” Technical & non-technical Other successes Importance What to avoid Masters of the obvious Disengaged Someone who tells you “what” Line talkers Same background Old coffee/lunch once a year Mentors, readers and a sustained trajectory • Nobody becomes a good scholar without help • Have someone read your CAREER proposal!

8. My experience • January 2001 • Here is your key • Here is your start-up account number… • Here is an empty office and a lab full of someone else’s stuff • Summer 2001 • CAREER grant submitted but turned down • Summer 2003 • Resubmitted with success • Planning made all the difference • Understand the proposal-panel interaction • June 2003 – mail review • January 2004 – panel review • January 2005 – panel review

9. Finis • Questions and discussion