Develop, refine, and pressure-test your idea before you commit to a full proposal.

Many early-career faculty planning to submit to the NSF CAREER program struggle most with gaining confidence that their idea is CAREER-ready. How do you know where to start writing if you don’t even understand your contribution?

The CAREER Concept Intensive is a one-on-one coaching and mentorship session designed to help you step back, examine your research concept, and determine how to build it to be strong enough—and structured enough—to become a competitive NSF CAREER proposal.

This is not a full proposal-writing program. It’s a clarity checkpoint. It’s designed to help you avoid investing months of effort in a proposal before you’re confident the underlying idea is strong.

You may opt to engage in an intensive prior to participating in the full Write Your CAREER program, or as a standalone activity. Due to the deep engagement required for this experience, I can only offer a limited number of these intensives per season.

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What You’ll Get

By the end of the Concept Intensive, you will:

• Articulate a clear, fundable CAREER research concept
• Understand how your idea maps onto the CAREER program’s expectations
• Identify gaps, risks, or missing pieces before you invest months of effort
• Leave with concrete next steps—whether that’s moving forward, revising, or pivoting

The key focus of this intensive is getting the research+education integration plan right. You will get structured guidance and brainstorming partnership on how to take your local context and research applications and design an education & mentoring plan that will impress your reviewers. The research brainstorming will go hand-in-hand with this discussion.

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Format & Scheduling

The CAREER Concept Intensive consists of 3 sessions:

• a brief (30-min) grounding session — introducing your concept space, and the brainstorming method we’ll use,
• a focused (2-hour) deep-dive session — brainstorming on a collaborative shared (virtual) whiteboard,
• a brief (30-min) launching session — wrapping up your next steps to launch this idea into a competitive proposal.

For those wishing to complete the Write Your CAREER program as well, CAREER Concept Intensive sessions will be scheduled in January and February on an individual basis. For others, limited sessions will be available through June — contact me if you have concerns about scheduling prior to enrolling.

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Who It’s For

This intensive is a good fit if you:

• are considering an NSF CAREER proposal but aren’t sure your idea is “there” yet
• have multiple ideas and don’t know which one to pursue
• are worried about novelty, scope, or alignment with CAREER expectations
• lack strong local mentorship on CAREER proposals
• want feedback before committing to a full proposal-writing program

You do not need to have a polished idea. You do need to have a genuine research direction you want to explore. I can’t help you find an idea, but I can help you refine your idea.

How this fits with the ‘Write Your CAREER’ Program

Some participants enroll in the CAREER Concept Intensive as a standalone experience.

Others use it as a precursor to the full Write Your CAREER program, entering that program with:

• greater confidence in their core idea, and
• less uncertainty about whether they’re “on the right track.”

Either path is valid.

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NSF CAREER Concept Intensive — Ready to Enroll?

I can only offer this experience to a small number of faculty. Enroll early to secure your spot!

I’m looking forward to working with you!

Want to enroll in both Write Your CAREER and the CAREER Concept Intensive?
Just submit a payment on both this page and the program page, OR email me to get a combined payment link.

Not quite ready?
Email me anytime to set up a time to chat about your needs.

— *Lisa

✒️🌱🔥🫶🪻

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