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NSF GRFP Proposal Library

This Proposal Library was created in collaboration with the Stanford Biosciences Student Association.

Benjamin N Bell

Benjamin N Bell

Molecular and Cellular Physiology

Awardee

“Look at successful applications!! I got ideas for highlighting things I wanted to emphasize by looking at other applications.”

"My proposal was based on my rotation project as a first-year grad student. Even though I was motivated by potential downstream translational application, I tried to focus on the more biophysical implications. I think the NSF really prefers biophysical/hard-core basic biology over anything remotely clinical!"

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Alyssa Benjamin

Alyssa Benjamin

Genetics

Awardee

“Don’t be shy about sending your proposal to others for feedback and don’t worry about making it perfect before you show it to someone! Getting feedback is a great way to help you focus on your best ideas and get inspiration for improvements.”

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Jeremy Bjelajac

Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine

Awardee

“Personal statement should tell a coherent story while highlighting your achievements, it may sound like you’re gloating but thats okay. The research statement needs to follow a logical progression, and neither of your aims should be able to “fail”, make it so that any result is useful knowledge.”

"I had to change my headspace for sure. I found it most easy to focus on a translational topic I was passionate about (had prior experience in), do a deep dive into the general topic/tangential biology and look for gaps in basic knowledge within that topic that you can analyze in a basic science approach. I found that it kept me engaged/interested in the proposal, so that I could actually finish it."

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Kristy Carpenter

Kristy Carpenter

Biomedical Informatics

Awardee

“The SBSA peer mentorship program was super valuable! It kept me accountable and gave me internal deadlines to make sure I finished all parts of the application on time. My peer mentor was really helpful and instrumental in me submitting a strong application!”

"My research proposal was based on a very translational rotation project. The original goal of the project was to develop a method to efficiently screen for new antibodies for therapeutic use. Obviously this was too translational for NSF, so I reframed the motivation as screening for nanobodies to replace larger antibodies in basic science assays. Antibody therapeutics only appeared briefly at the end of my broader impacts section -- though I focused on the broader impact of allowing the greater scientific community to use the tool to repurpose and replace antibodies for basic biological research. This reframing allowed me to use the technical details of the translational project but gave it a motivating story that aligned better with what the NSF is looking for."

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Joleen Cheah

Biology

Awardee

“My professors’ input on my application was extremely useful.”

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Isabel O Delwel

Microbiology and Immunology

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Tristram Dodge

Biology

Awardee

“Feedback from my PI was important to make sure the science was right, and feedback from other professors who weren’t familiar with the system was helpful to make sure I was communicating clearly and including the necessary details.”

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Peter Du

Peter Du

Cancer Biology

Honorable Mention

“It’s alright to go through multiple iterations of your proposal, even if it changes the direction drastically. Try to make sure there is some synergy between your personal statement and research proposal.”

"Many oncogenic cell programs are just normal cell programs that are overtuned or co-opted. Try to find the basic biology behind the disease that you are interested in and design your proposal around that."

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Gina El Nesr

Biophysics

Awardee

“Be creative! The best advice I got was to write a proposal for a project I would love to do, inspired by the research I’ve done and classes I’ve taken. With background in the material that would be involved to tackle the research, all that’s left was to dream big and have fun with the proposal.”

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Lucas Encarnacion-Rivera

Lucas Encarnacion-Rivera

Neurosciences

Awardee

“Maximize your chances at getting it by thinking like a reviewer. “

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Amy Fan

Immunology

Awardee

“Write to the rubric — read what is being evaluated in terms of intellectual merit and broader impacts, and explicitly tie your experiences to those metrics. The biggest difference in my first and second application was framing my research plan to address a basic science question and thinking about the broader impacts of the research in terms of the scientific community instead of its translational applications.”

"The project that my research advisor and I came up with was originally aimed at asking a question about disease, so I framed it as, "By using this model, we can understand this biological phenomenon that is disrupted in a disease due to some kind of genetic or cellular dysfunction." Additional, I made sure to not introduce the project as a disease-centered project thinking about the mortality and morbidity of the disease course, but instead thinking about why it is important to understand the biological processes in the tissues or cells affected by this disease or how my research could be used in outreach, scientific communication, and other community-oriented broader impacts."

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Scott Fleming

Biomedical Informatics

“Focus on your own personal experiences and commitments when thinking about the “Broader Impacts” criterion. Also be sure to get feedback from current students, especially those who may have already received the NSF GRFP.”

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Alyssa Lyn Fortier

Biology

Awardee

“I would have to do. The NSF GRFP application needs to capture your story, so you really have to craft a narrative that explains your journey to grad school. I wasn’t really sure what my journey was, so I had to think long and hard about the actions and thought processes that led me here.”

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Emily Greenwald

Emily Greenwald

Genetics

Awardee

“Outreach and a diversity of prior experience is a big plus. They care most about intellectual merit and broader impacts, so use those words a LOT. Make a broader impacts plan for your time at grad school and state it.”

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Meagan Hamblin

Microbiology and Immunology

Awardee

“Halfway through writing my research proposal I completely changed the aims I was proposing. After getting feedback I realized my proposal would be stronger with the different experiments. Don’t be afraid to seek out feedback and be open to brainstorming lots of different project ideas and experiments in the beginning stages.”

"Even though my proposal was about a pathogen that infects humans and causes disease - I focused the questions I was asking to be about the basic biology occurring at the cellular level and highlighted the field's gaps in understanding at that time."

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Alvin Han

Microbiology and Immunology

Awardee

“Start early and solicit feedback often! The back and forth of ideas with peers and mentors is what produces the best writing!”

"Microbiome research is nice because there are a lot of basic questions about ecology that must be answered to effectively translate research, so I focused on those ecological questions, rather than the translational potential."

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Ariel Hannum

Ariel Hannum

Bioengineering

Awardee

“Definitely start early and talk to people about your proposal and personal statement. Whether it is fellow grad students, mentors, or friends that are not in your field, they can be a resource to bounce ideas off of. Having a friend take a fresh look before you submit your application is extremely helpful, as they can pick up on grammatical errors you may have missed after looking at your document over several months. “

"I focused my proposal on a technical development that could have clinical implications. My aims were focused on improving the technique rather than the application."

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Lynnette Jackson

Structural Biology

Awardee

“The best advice I received is that the GRFP funds individuals rather than just their research proposals. Make sure that each aspect of your application is telling the reviewers who you are as a scientist and a person. Also the broader impacts and intellectual merit are often overlooked but they are critical for getting funded!”

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Christina Jensen

Chemical and Systems Biology

Awardee

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Youlim Kim

Microbiology and Immunology

Honorable Mention

“The personal statement and broader impacts deserve just as much, if not more attention than the research statement. The NSF is funding the researcher, not the research.”

"Although I knew that my broader goal was to use my research to inform how we improve human health, I tailored my plan to focus on basic cellular mechanisms that will improve our understanding of how human biology works."

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Austin Kuo

Neurosciences

Honorable Mention

“A good approach to the application is to get started early, or at least to start thinking about what to write for the Research Plan and Personal Statement as soon as possible, so ideas have time to get fleshed out and go through multiple revisions. For me, getting useful feedback from several different sources was probably the most important factor in strengthening my proposal.”

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Logan Leak

Cancer Biology

Honorable Mention

“Writing a proposal for the NSF taught me how to identify novel research areas and outline an experimental plan for filling a gap in knowledge.”

"Every translational research project is somehow rooted in basic science at its core. For me, I was interested in the process of killing cancer cells, so I honed in on the study of cell death and focused on the cellular pathways underlying this process."

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Yannick Clency Lee-yow

Genetics

Awardee

“Don’t stress about NSF GRFP too much. It doesn’t really change your graduate school experience in the slightest.”

"Focus on the molecular mechanisms that underlie the translational topic you are interested in, and avoid highlighting the impacts and significance to human health. Take a 'basic science' kind of perspective."

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Irene Li

Irene Li

Cancer Biology

Awardee

“Your draft will go through many iterations – this is totally ok, and asking for opinions is helpful! However, there will come a time when sometimes different opinions will contradict one another, which can be overwhelming – at that point, have confidence in yourself and know that it’s your decision in the end what to include. “

"Instead of framing the project based on liver cancer (which my rotation project was on) I focused on the basic science functions of hepatocytes and understudied mechanisms of wound healing/aging. The mouse models I discussed are ostensibly useful in cancer studies, but also for basic science mechanisms as well. Thus, the reframe was able to leverage my rotation lab's resources and expertise in liver cancer research without making the outcome clinical."

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Samson Mataraso

Biomedical Informatics

Awardee

“My advice for writing the NSF GRFP is to make sure that you are very clear about how your work will contribute to the advancement of science.”

"I thought about what basic science discoveries I needed to solve the relevant clinical problems. I emphasized how my work advanced those basic science principles and didn't discuss the implications for clinical problems very much."

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Alma G. Mendoza

Microbiology and Immunology

Awardee

“Make sure that your personal statement gives the reviewers insight into who you are and what drives you. This is your only chance to let them get to know why they should invest in your future.”

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Elisabeth Meyer

Elisabeth Meyer

Biochemistry

“Start with topics you can get help on (e.g. from your current rotation lab) and from there, pick something you find interesting. For the personal statement, it can feel embarrassing but have as many people read over it as possible.”

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Michael Montgomery

Genetics

Awardee

“Identify a broad scientific question and think about how this question is related to the work you have already done and your goals for graduate school. This will save you a lot of time in creating a proposal that has well connected aims and makes sense within the context of your current scientific training and career trajectory.”

“The biggest change I made to improve the quality of my statements was revising key sentences to make sure that they very, very clearly conveyed the intellectual merit and broader impact of my proposal as a whole. I focused on making sure that someone who read only these bolded/italicized sentences would still be able to understand what I was proposing and how it fulfilled the funding criteria.”

"Shifting my perspective towards more basic science questions was one of the hardest steps in designing my research plan. To do this, I started framing my questions to address mechanisms underlying cellular processes instead of to address how dysregulation of a cellular process leads to disease. For example, I focused on dynamic regulation of gene expression programs underlying heart development instead of writing about genetic variants that disturb differentiation and function of heart cells."

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Ben Moran

Biology

Awardee

“You almost certainly won’t end up doing exactly what you say in your Research Plan statement, but it’s still a valuable experience to write. The process makes you think hard about what you want to get out of your PhD, and is hopefully an opportunity for you to co-produce an exciting idea with your research mentors.”

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Maike Morrison

Maike Morrison

Biology

Awardee

“Talk to your PI about your application materials and ask for advice, especially when developing your research proposal. You don’t have to come up with the ideas behind your materials alone.”

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Rahul Nagvekar

Genetics

Awardee

”Having an application that is both clearly basic-science focused and has clear broader impacts can be difficult! It is also subjective, so make sure to have multiple people read drafts of your application and ask for their feedback as to whether both of these aspects are apparent.”

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Priya Nair

Bioengineering

Awardee

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Rachel Porter

Molecular and Cellular Physiology

Awardee

“Reviewers need to see that you are a qualified candidate and can propose an original project idea, but they also want to get a sense of who you are as a person, and how that has influenced your work. Including personal details or experiences can really strengthen your application, and the lack of can count against you.”

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Ramya Rangan

Ramya Rangan

Biophysics

Awardee

“I wish I had shown more people my application materials! I only showed my research advisor at the time. It would have given me a sense for whether I was on the right track.”

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Aditya Rao

Aditya Rao

Immunology

Awardee

“For the personal statement, the biggest positive change I made between the first and second submission was explicitly splitting my essay into an “Intellectual Merits” section and a “Broader Impacts” section.”

"The first time I applied for the NSF GRFP, I got rejected without review because my proposal was too health-related. So when I applied the second time, I made sure to emphasize the non-health aspects of the research proposal (i.e. focusing on basic biology and the technical aspects of the projects)."

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Adonis Alexandre Rubio

Immunology

Awardee

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Erin Sanders

Erin Sanders

Developmental Biology

Awardee

“My PI helped me really hone a “theme” for my personal statement, a unifying idea that you can come back to repetitively. My theme was “fearless”. The key is to tell a story about yourself that the reviewers actually want to read, that is not just a laundry list of your accomplishments. Tell them what you did, why it was interesting and how it shaped you. You can even try to tie in the theme to your proposal. This strategy sets your essay apart from all the others that start “when i was a kid….”. Not that this can’t be an effective strategy, but a LOT of people use it. Think about what makes you and your story special.”

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Danica Schmidtke

Microbiology and Immunology

Awardee

“Getting feedback from lots of people is good, but remember that you do NOT have to use every suggestion you get. Make sure you don’t lose your voice!”

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Daniel A Shaykevich

Daniel A Shaykevich

Biology

Awardee

“The GRFP is mostly about you and your potential as a scientist, not the project you are proposing! It’s important to think about why you do science and what you want to accomplish, in addition to the mechanics of your project. “

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Sebastian Toro Arana

Biology

Honorable Mention

“My rotation PI and the SBSA peer mentoring program really strengthened my proposal.”

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Rachel Varnau

Rachel Varnau

Biology

Honorable Mention

“Ask professors and other mentors for feedback at every stage, and read others’ applications before writing your own. “

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Jonathan Weiss

Jonathan Weiss

Bioengineering

Awardee

“One huge piece of advice I was given was that NSF funds YOU, not your project. Make sure you emphasize the qualities that make you a unique, capable, and impactful researcher!”

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Ali Wilkening

Developmental Biology

Awardee

“Think broadly when it comes to broader impacts and intellectual merit and make sure those qualities are easily found by the reviewer. Think about all the broader impacts your work could possibly make and how you are uniquely poised to enact them then make a list and choose the top few to emphasize in your proposal and tie those into your experiences in your personal statement. For my second application, I started working on it much earlier and got help from a lot more people and with broader backgrounds/relationships to me. I also made sure to frame my personal statement into a story to demonstrate what personal factors drove me to complete the broader impacts I claimed in my proposal.”

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Alexa Wnorowski

Bioengineering

Honorable Mention

“My advice to you is ask for lots of feedback! Don’t be afraid to reach out to others who have applied or received the fellowship before, especially if they’re in a similar field.”

"Even though I was personally primarily motivated by the clinical problem, I tried to center my proposals around the tool or technology I was trying to improve in order to better understand the diseases I was interested in studying or treating."

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Lily Xu

Lily Xu

Microbiology and Immunology

Awardee

“I signed up for the NSF GRFP mentoring program through SBSA! This was by far the most helpful resource – my mentor offered their time each week to give me personalized feedback and the overall program set manageable deadlines that kept me on track. The NSF GRFP is not something you can pull together in a weekend – start early, leave time to receive feedback from PIs, mentors, labmates, friends, etc., and keep writing!”

"My topic (related to flaviviruses) has a basis in human disease, but after getting feedback, my mentors recommended that I focus on other basic science components, without mentioning the human disease aspects. For me, this was talking about viruses in the context of viral evolution and the host-virus arms races, rather than viral infection."

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Ilana Zucker-Scharff

Ilana Zucker-Scharff

Neurosciences

Honorable Mention

“People are super willing to share their insight/proposals if you just reach out.”

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