Faculty Facilitator

Megan Mayerle

My goal is to provide strategies and tools to demystify the academic system and enable scientists to succeed.

📍 USA

Picking a Good Project

Being the primary on a good project is essential for your career. A good project is fundable, will yield multiple publications, instigate new areas of research, and give you something interesting to talk about both personally and professionally. A good project has two key features: funding and interest. Funding Without

How to apply to graduate school in the United States

In the United States, you apply to a PhD program, not to an individual PI as is common in many other countries. Most graduate school applications are due in late fall or early winter. Applications are reviewed by a committee of faculty who then invite a subset of applicants for

Communicating Research

In order for research to be impactful, your findings and their significance must be understood. Such communications can take a variety of forms, some traditional and some more unusual. Traditional Channels Peer-reviewed publications Peer-reviewed publications are a non-negotiable component of running a successful research program. Research findings must be published

Pivoting Research for Foundations

United States federal research funding has historically been a key driver of scientific advancement, economic growth, and societal well-being. The level and consistency of financial support provided by government organizations such as the NIH, NSF, DoE and others has directly accelerated the number of breakthroughs in medicine and technology, while

Get your inbox under control

Email is a critical method of communication. However we are getting more emails than ever before, and it is difficult to stay current in email while not detracting from other essential activities. Opening an overflowing inbox can be distracting at a minimum, and can trigger intense anxiety. Here’s some

Developing a Writing Practice

The ability to write quickly and well is essential for success in biomedical research. There is a constant need to produce protocols, grants, manuscripts, letters of recommendation, lay summaries, abstracts, and other documents, along with the high volume of professional emails requiring a response. Fortunately, writing is a skill that

NIH Review Process

Structuring your grant proposal in a way that makes it easy for your reviewers will help them both understand the importance and impact of your science, and validate that you meet all requirements for funding. Understanding what happens to a grant after submission can help you do this. Compliance Review

Writing Lay Summaries

The ability to convey your ideas to a variety of audiences is an essential skill. A lay summary is a short document included in many grant applications that asks you to explain your proposal to a non-specialist audience. Writing an excellent lay summary will help you get funded. Lay summaries

NIH Reference Letters

The NIH requires Reference Letters for Fellowships (Fs), mentored Career Development Awards (Ks), and other programs. They are often confused with Letters of Support, but they have a completely different purpose and should be approached in a structured way to ensure that they provide a trainee applicant with the best

NIH Narrative

The NIH allows you 3 sentences to summarize your proposal in the form of a narrative statement. This structure forces you to succinctly and directly address the NIH's review criteria, specifying whether your research proposal innovatively addresses a problem of importance (Factor 1) in an achievable (Factor 3)