Faculty Facilitator

Megan Mayerle

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

📍 USA

NIH Letters of Support

A Letter of Support for a grant is a means to convey to reviewers that the PI has in place the expertise and resources to complete the proposed grant aims. The letter should be succinct and tailored for the specific grant that the PI is applying for. Structure of the

What is a PTA?

The majority of US universities use PTAs to track expenses charged to different accounts. A PTA is a bit like a bank account number in that it identifies a specific source of funding. However it’s more complicated in that it identifies the funding goal at 3 different levels, the

NIH URM Eligibility

There are a variety of grants, fellowships, and supplements available to individuals who meet the NIH’s definition of an Underrepresented Population in the US Biomedical, Clinical, Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Enterprise (URM). However, these funding mechanisms are underutilized because the NIH’s definition is rather broad, and many

Documenting Performance Issues

Managing poor performance is key to running a productive lab and to being an effective faculty member. It can be an emotionally draining task, and also often quite frustrating. Here are some tips that can make the process more productive. Please note that this is for mundane issues. In cases

Sabbatical as a Fiscal Tool

A sabbatical can have many purposes, including a very pragmatic fiscal one. For each unit of time worked, a faculty member earns X many hours of sabbatical time, similar to the way staff accrue vacation time. Then, once a faculty member reaches a minimum amount of accrued time, the faculty

Authorship Order

The order authors are listed on peer-reviewed scientific papers serves as a shorthand that signifies the contribution of each author. Each discipline has its own system in terms of what each authorship position signifies. Here I write from the perspective of the basic biomedical sciences. What Each Position Signifies The

Book review - "Be Useful", by Arnold Schwarzenegger

I’m going to riff off on how James Clear does his book reviews, providing an overall summary and then notes I took while reading. Final Thoughts: The title says it all. I liked this book- it is remarkably practical about its suggestions for how to move yourself closer to

Termination, Layoff, or Non-Renewal?

Termination, layoff, and non-renewal are 3 separate mechanisms through which an employer can stop working with an employee. The process for initiating each, documentation required, timeline, experience of the impacted employee, and perception of the employee by a future employer all vary. Below is a conceptual overview. For specifics to

How to ask for a letter of recommendation

Letters of recommendation are needed for hiring and promotion at all career points, from a first undergraduate summer internship to professional awards for senior faculty. They are also critical for obtaining tenure. You need to know who to ask for a letter of recommendation (LOR), and how and when to

Calculating Indirects as Part of a Total Award Budget

Some funding announcements provide budget information as a maximum allowed total cost along with a rate to budget indirects. The most common error is to calculate the indirect costs off of the total costs. Here's how to do it correctly.