In this episode we talk with Donna Ginter on her tips to a successful grant proposal. Donna is the Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute for Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her major fields of study are scientific labor markets, gender differences in employment outcomes, wage inequality, scientific entrepreneurship, children's educational attainments, and child abuse and neglect.

In her role as the director of IPSR at Kansas she helps people get funded through different means. Her research also focuses on scientific entrepreneurship. Finally, Donna has has extensive experience applying for grants and serving in committees that award grants. She shares what she has learned from all of these experiences with us.

Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia.

Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Recommendations of the week:

Donna recommends that if you are looking for a way to quickly re-charge your batteries, go out for a walk in "nature". Donna feels that going out to nature even for 15 minutes can help recharge energy and get the creative flow going. Her second recommendation is to track your time. Pick a given week or period of time for which you will track your time. Then check how much %s of your time you spend on each category of your job and adjust accordingly.

Alex's recommendation of the week is to ask people for their successful grant applications. When he started this process, Alex didn't know where to start. Seeing a friend's application was very helpful in understanding format, and narrative of how an application looks.

Sebastian's recommendation of the week is to apply for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. This fellowship provides you with financial support and importantly it can relief you from teaching assistant duties during your PhD Program, which can be very helpful. You can apply for this fellowship while applying for graduate school or in your first year of graduate school.