MCB Congratulates its newest cohort of CAREER awardees. The NSF Faculty Early CAREER Development Award (CAREER) is the most prestigious award that NSF gives to early career investigators, enabling these new faculty to embark on an academic career that integrates research and education. In Fiscal year 2022, MCB funded 33 CAREER awards to new faculty in 18 states, including 5 EPSCoR states, and at a diverse set of institutions, including those that are research intensive, primarily undergraduate, and minority-serving.
The CAREER awards in the FY22 MCB portfolio covered topics across the entire spectrum of MCB-funded science from the molecular to cellular, including topics such as genome stability, DNA repair, intracellular signaling, and organelle formation. The projects used computational and experimental tools including those from biophysics and synthetic biology. Some exciting projects include:
- The development of novel approaches to understand how proteins insert themselves into cellular membranes
- How oxidative damage to DNA is repaired by cellular enzymes
- How cells determined which duplicated genes were retained or lost during evolution
- How components of bacterial immune systems can be utilized as tools for improving medicine or crop production.
A distinguishing criterion of CAREER awards is the integration of research with education, which is often described in the context of broader impacts. Broader impacts efforts undertaken by this year’s awardees will engage high school students and their teachers, as well as community college, undergraduate and graduate students, in projects that range from course-based research experiences to activities involving inflatable project domes that can be transported across schools. In some of the most innovative activities, undergraduate students will test for water pollution by visually monitoring a biological motor, graduate students will use smartphone optical microscopes and microfluidic technologies to design devices for undergraduate classrooms, high school students will be introduced to synthetic biology through modular education kits, and STEM students will partner with journalism faculty to enhance their ability to effectively communicate science to the non-scientific community.
MCB was fortunate to have received support from the American Rescue Plan to enable the support of so many early career faculty.
A complete listing of the new MCB CAREER award recipients can be found here (link).
How to Submit to the CAREER Program
The latest update of the CAREER solicitation (NSF 22-586) was recently released.
Changes include:
- Proposal submissions must be through Research.gov
- There are new guidelines for letters from the Department Chair
- Submission Deadline is Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Potential proposers are encouraged to read the full text of the solicitation. Submissions of CAREER proposals are encouraged from early-career faculty at all CAREER-eligible organizations and are especially encouraged from women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities to apply.
Related upcoming events:
MCB is holding a Virtual Office Hour on May 11th, 2-3 p.m. EST about the Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER). You can register for the office hour here.
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