writing beam time proposals
Hi folks, Yesterday I received an interesting question about writing beam time proposals. I know that proposal review panel members at least from APS and NSLS are readers of this mailing list (perhaps other synchrotrons as well), so I thought it would be interesting to start a thread on proposal writing strategies. The fellow who sent me mail asked: My question is, since I am a student, should my advisor be the official PI applying for time or should I be the PI? Is there any advantage one way or the other? In principle, I think it should not matter. Beam time should be awarded to a quality proposal. What advice do you all have for this proposal writer? What has your experience in applying for beam time? BTW, this fellow had been a student in a recent XAS summer school. I suggested he mention that in his proposal. Regards, B -- Bruce Ravel ---------------------------------------------- bravel@anl.gov Molecular Environmental Science Group, Building 203, Room E-165 MRCAT, Sector 10, Advance Photon Source, Building 433, Room B007 Argonne National Laboratory phone and voice mail: (1) 630 252 5033 Argonne IL 60439, USA fax: (1) 630 252 9793 My homepage: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel EXAFS software: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel/software/exafs/
You are right, it does not matter. The judgement of the quality of the proposal is not, in my experience, based on the author's reputation. Carlo On Fri, 23 Sep 2005, Bruce Ravel wrote:
Hi folks,
Yesterday I received an interesting question about writing beam time proposals. I know that proposal review panel members at least from APS and NSLS are readers of this mailing list (perhaps other synchrotrons as well), so I thought it would be interesting to start a thread on proposal writing strategies.
The fellow who sent me mail asked: My question is, since I am a student, should my advisor be the official PI applying for time or should I be the PI? Is there any advantage one way or the other?
In principle, I think it should not matter. Beam time should be awarded to a quality proposal. What advice do you all have for this proposal writer? What has your experience in applying for beam time?
BTW, this fellow had been a student in a recent XAS summer school. I suggested he mention that in his proposal.
Regards, B
-- Carlo U. Segre -- Professor of Physics Associate Dean for Special Projects, Graduate College Illinois Institute of Technology Voice: 312.567.3498 Fax: 312.567.3494 Carlo.Segre@iit.edu http://www.iit.edu/~segre
In my opinion, it is better for the student or post-doc to write the beamtime proposal and be listed as PI, with the advisor listed somewhere on the proposal Many proposal foms have a checkbox for 'is this work part of a thesis', and that is definitely monitored (at least at the APS, but I'd imagine it to be true at other facilities), even if it is not formalized. There is usually an eagerness for bringing new students (and new post-docs and new faculty members) to the syncrotrons. Also, in my experience reading beamtime proposals now and then, students and post-docs do a better job at writing them <wink>. Even f the professor is listed first (and many groups do this!), I would suggest that the student/post-doc actually write the proposal and have the advisor look it over before submitting. Other advice for writing proposals: - communicate with the beamline scientist to make sure the work is feasible and appropriate. - write it to convince someone in a *different field* why the experiment is important. - include references to previous work to show that you know the field. --Matt
At 10:15 AM 9/23/2005 -0500, you wrote:
You are right, it does not matter. The judgement of the quality of the proposal is not, in my experience, based on the author's reputation.
Carlo
FWIW, this is one of the reviews I got for a beam time proposal:
The PI proposes to study monodisperced nanoparticle size using XAFS and compare it against TEM and DLS. The PI has proven in recent years to carry out careful and well planned experiments. Previous studies have resulted in several high quality publications in letter and archievel literature. The PI also has been active in the integration of undergraduate students in his synchrotron research. I highly recommend user time.
For this reviewer, it appears that "reputation" was a factor. My guess, however, is that reputation of this sort is transferable to the whole research group; as long as the more senior adviser is mentioned somewhere in the proposal, it should be just as likely to get approved as if the senior member is the PI. For the other reasons that people have suggested, I agree that having the student as PI is desirable. Also, of course, having the student as PI is good for their career in the long run, as they can build on the experience when they establish their own program... --Scott Calvin Sarah Lawrence College
Hello all, just a quick question: is there any way to place the labels of the paths in PGPLOT that would not go out of the window such as shown here below?Thanks. Stefano -- ____________________________________________ Stefano Ciurli Professor of Chemistry Laboratory of Bioinorganic Chemistry Department of Agro-Environmental Science and Technology University of Bologna Viale Giuseppe Fanin, 40 I-40127 Bologna Italy Phone: +39-051-209-6204 Fax: +39-051-209-6203 "Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza" Dante Alighieri - Inferno - Canto XXVI "Ihr seid bestimmt, nicht Tieren gleich zu leben, Nein, Tugend zu erringen und Erkenntnis" "Ye were not form'd to live the life of brutes, But virtue to pursue and knowledge high"
On Wednesday 07 December 2005 09:49, Stefano Ciurli wrote:
just a quick question: is there any way to place the labels of the paths in PGPLOT that would not go out of the window such as shown here below?Thanks.
In Athena: Settings->Edit Preferences In Artemis: Edit->Edit Preferences Once there, plot->key_x, key_y, key_dy The first two set the x and y position as a fraction of the lengths of the plot axes of the upper left hand corner of the legend. The dy parameter adjusts the spacing between legend entries. B -- Bruce Ravel ---------------------------------------------- bravel@anl.gov Molecular Environmental Science Group, Building 203, Room E-165 MRCAT, Sector 10, Advanced Photon Source, Building 433, Room B007 Argonne National Laboratory phone and voice mail: (1) 630 252 5033 Argonne IL 60439, USA fax: (1) 630 252 9793 My homepage: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel EXAFS software: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel/software/
Thanks! -- ____________________________________________ Stefano Ciurli Professor of Chemistry Laboratory of Bioinorganic Chemistry Department of Agro-Environmental Science and Technology University of Bologna Viale Giuseppe Fanin, 40 I-40127 Bologna Italy Phone: +39-051-209-6204 Fax: +39-051-209-6203 "Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza" Dante Alighieri - Inferno - Canto XXVI "Ihr seid bestimmt, nicht Tieren gleich zu leben, Nein, Tugend zu erringen und Erkenntnis" "Ye were not form'd to live the life of brutes, But virtue to pursue and knowledge high"
On Wednesday 07 December 2005 09:49, Stefano Ciurli wrote:
just a quick question: is there any way to place the labels of the paths in PGPLOT that would not go out of the window such as shown here below?Thanks.
Hmmm... it occurs to me that a different answer to that question for Artemis is explained here: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/iffwiki/HoraeTipOfTheWeek#head-7891874b65bbb1827d2... You can edit the template for the path label to be a shorter string. That plus using short labels for data and feff calculations will keep the legend from going off the screen. B -- Bruce Ravel ---------------------------------------------- bravel@anl.gov Molecular Environmental Science Group, Building 203, Room E-165 MRCAT, Sector 10, Advanced Photon Source, Building 433, Room B007 Argonne National Laboratory phone and voice mail: (1) 630 252 5033 Argonne IL 60439, USA fax: (1) 630 252 9793 My homepage: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel EXAFS software: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel/software/
Hi Bruce,
Hmmm... it occurs to me that a different answer to that question for Artemis is explained here:
http://cars9.uchicago.edu/iffwiki/HoraeTipOfTheWeek#head-7891874b65bbb1827d2...
You can edit the template for the path label to be a shorter string. That plus using short labels for data and feff calculations will keep the legend from going off the screen.
this could be a nice improvement, that is to possibly change the label font and size on the fly, also for Athena. Maybe in the future? Stefano -- ____________________________________________ Stefano Ciurli Professor of Chemistry Laboratory of Bioinorganic Chemistry Department of Agro-Environmental Science and Technology University of Bologna Viale Giuseppe Fanin, 40 I-40127 Bologna Italy Phone: +39-051-209-6204 Fax: +39-051-209-6203 "Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza" Dante Alighieri - Inferno - Canto XXVI "Ihr seid bestimmt, nicht Tieren gleich zu leben, Nein, Tugend zu erringen und Erkenntnis" "Ye were not form'd to live the life of brutes, But virtue to pursue and knowledge high"
I agree with others that it would be better for the student to write the proposal and submit it as the PI, particularly if the professor is not an active synchrotron user. In reviewing GU proposals, it is fairly easy to spot a new user, either by too little focus on the specific type of information that the synchrotron technique will provide (for example, not recognizing for a very complex sample that a spectrum is some average of multiple bonding environments), or by too much focus on experimental details such as data-collection and analysis steps that are considered routine for more experienced users. Definitely try to strike a balance between the broader impacts of the science and usefulness of the analyses, versus the specifics of how the data will be collected and analyzed. Also, I think it would help to state that you've taken an XAFS course. It would be best to team up with an experienced user, ideally working in the same field, or at least have an experienced user read the proposal if possible. Seeing previously-published work by someone involved in the project (even if that person agrees only to give advice during the course of the study) helps convince the proposal reviewer that the PI will get useful data without a lot of trial-and-error. Dean DEAN HESTERBERG Professor Dept. of Soil Science College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Box 7619 3235 Williams Hall NC State University Raleigh, NC 27695-7619 voice: (919) 513-3035 fax: (919) 515-2167 email: dean_hesterberg@ncsu.edu On Sep 23, 2005, at 11:06 AM, Bruce Ravel wrote:
Hi folks,
Yesterday I received an interesting question about writing beam time proposals. I know that proposal review panel members at least from APS and NSLS are readers of this mailing list (perhaps other synchrotrons as well), so I thought it would be interesting to start a thread on proposal writing strategies.
The fellow who sent me mail asked: My question is, since I am a student, should my advisor be the official PI applying for time or should I be the PI? Is there any advantage one way or the other?
In principle, I think it should not matter. Beam time should be awarded to a quality proposal. What advice do you all have for this proposal writer? What has your experience in applying for beam time?
BTW, this fellow had been a student in a recent XAS summer school. I suggested he mention that in his proposal.
Regards, B
-- Bruce Ravel ---------------------------------------------- bravel@anl.gov
Molecular Environmental Science Group, Building 203, Room E-165 MRCAT, Sector 10, Advance Photon Source, Building 433, Room B007
Argonne National Laboratory phone and voice mail: (1) 630 252 5033 Argonne IL 60439, USA fax: (1) 630 252 9793
My homepage: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel EXAFS software: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel/software/exafs/
_______________________________________________ Ifeffit mailing list Ifeffit@millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov http://millenia.cars.aps.anl.gov/mailman/listinfo/ifeffit
participants (6)
-
Bruce Ravel -
Carlo Segre -
Dean Hesterberg -
Matt Newville -
Scott Calvin -
Stefano Ciurli