DER Weekly Newsletter, November 25th, 2020


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November 25th, 2020

		DER Funding Database

		Weekly In Progress Report

DER Welcomes Alex Delavan as New Director

Alex Delavan has been working in Research Administration for almost 15 years since first joining Michigan State in January 2006. Between his first stint and returning in the Director role within DER, he’s since worked as a Grant Coordinator (Henry Ford Health System), as the Manger of Government & Technical Affairs (Delphi Automotive), as the Director of Sponsored Programs (Oakland University), and most recently served two years as the Assistant Director in the Office of Sponsored Projects Administration at the University of Kentucky.

In 2009, Alex earned his Certified Research Administrator designation and subsequently served on the Board of Directors of the certifying body, the Research Administrators Certification Council, from 2012-2018. Alex currently serves as the President of the Commercial Division for the Society of Research Administrators and spent a year and a half as an Ad Hoc Member of the Board of Directors. He was recognized among the 2017 classes of the Oakland County 40 Under 40 and Oakland University Alumni Association 10 Within 10, as well as received the Mid-career SRA Excellence Award.

Alex is excited to work hard as a Servant Leader to support both the dedicated staff of the DER and the faculty research community within the College of Engineering. You can reach Alex via email at delavana@msu.edu.

Engineering Research Reactivation SharePoint

The Engineering Research Reactivation all-inclusive SharePoint page has helpful reopening resources, important processes, and documents that need to be completed and approved to "return to research". Please request access if prompted.

Important Announcement:

Where is my "LABORATORY PLAN FOR A SAFE RETURN" in the approval process?

You can see what step of the approval process your plan is on by looking under the “Engineering Research Reactivation” folders on the SharePoint site.

If the plan has been approved by the Department Chair, you can see if it has been sent to VPRI by clicking on “EGR ADR Review” > “At VPRI for Review”. If the plan is in the “At VPRI for Review” folder then it is currently being reviewed by VPRI.
To check to see if your plan has been completely approved by all required departments (DC, EGR Dean's Office, and VPRI), you can click on the “VPRI Final Approved Plans” folder. If your plan is in the “VPRI Final Approved Plans” folder then you approved to return to research. Monique Blackmer (monique@msu.edu) will reach out to you.

SharePoint Page

American Association for Cancer Research

Multiple Funding Opportunities:

MSU Science Festival: Submit Your Proposal to Present

Proposals are accepted until December 1st.

The MSU Science Festival, now in its 9th year, is an amazing multi-day series of events for people of all ages to experience science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) through live presentations.

Because of the uncertainty due to the coronavirus, the 2021 Festival will be online with synchronous events and some asynchronous experiences.

Learn more HERE.

Design Matters Seminar

Key steps for choosing a proper study design are understanding the scientific aims of the study and what is required to achieve them.

In this seminar there is a brief overview of some aspects of selected study designs. It is important to understand what sources of variation exist in your data and how your study design can address it. Threats to internal validity are measurement error, selection bias, imprecise estimation, confounding, missingness, and inappropriate analyses. Some design mistakes can be irremediable.

Presented by Dr. Marianne Huebner, CSTAT and Department of Statistics and Probability

On a related note, here is a 5 minute video of the presentation “Only fools rush in! – Initial data analysis is required for developing and validating prediction models”. It does give an outline of an initial data analysis plan (needed in addition to a statistical analysis plan for the study) and potential consequences. Watch Here.

X Prize Foundation Pandemic Response Challenge

XPrize will award a total of $500,000 in prizes to teams who develop prediction models that estimate daily COVID-19 cases with greatest accuracy and create prescriptive models that minimize infection cases and economic costs. Winning teams will develop prediction models the estimate future numbers of daily COVID 19 cases with the greatest accuracy and will produce the best prescription models for Intervention Plans. Registration of teams closes on December 8, 2020. Winners will be announced on February 26, 2021. More information and links to X Prize’s website.

Learn more Here.

DER's Proposal Volume

The chart above shows DER's Proposal Volume from 2016 to 2021 as of (11/25/2020).

Take a closer look

DER Seminars

Miss the Last Seminar? Watch it Here!

The Project Summary is one of the most important parts of every NSF grant proposal. A clear and concise Project Summary will make a positive first impression on reviewers and succinctly convey the key points of your project. However, writing a strong Project Summary can be deceptively hard. With only a single page to work with, it can be difficult to decide which information to include and how to best frame that information for impact. During this seminar, Dr. Sara Steenrod (Grant Consultant with OSVPRI) will walk you through best practices for writing a compelling Project Summary for your next NSF proposal.