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14 - Grant Proposal Writing with Dr. Jens Figlus and Dr. Peter Ruggiero
7 Plays9 months ago
In our latest Going Coastal episode, we sat down with two seasoned academics in the coastal field: Dr. Jens Figlus (Texas A&M University) and Dr. Peter Ruggiero (Oregon State University), who shared their career journeys, advice for students and early professionals, and a candid look into the realities of grant writing and research funding.
From fieldwork to proposal writing to finding your place in a tight-knit community, this episode dives into both the passion and practical skills needed to thrive in the field.
If you’re a student, educator, or coastal professional looking for real-world insights into research careers and growing the next generation in coastal science, this episode is for you.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome back to the Going Coastal podcast, the podcast for students and new professionals in the coastal field, hosted by myself, John Miller, Marissa Torres, and Deb Fernandez. Marissa, would you like to say hello? Hello.
00:00:22
Speaker
Today, we actually have a very exciting episode focused on ah grant writing and funding ah with two very successful professors in the field of coastal, generally speaking.
00:00:35
Speaker
ah We have Dr. Jens Figlus, Associate Professor of Ocean Engineering at Texas A&M University, and Dr. Peter Ruggiero, Professor of Coastal Hazards and Geomorphology in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University.
00:00:50
Speaker
Welcome Jens and Peter to the Going Coastal podcast. Hello, thanks for having us. Yeah, great to be here. Thanks,
Jens Figlus's Journey to Coastal Engineering
00:00:56
Speaker
guys. First thing we always like to do is get to know our guests, just a general broad opening question to ask you a little bit about your backgrounds.
00:01:03
Speaker
So, We'll start with Jens. Just tell us a little bit about yourself. All right, will do. Well, thank you both for having me here on this show. My name is Jens Fieglis, as you mentioned. um I'm currently at Texas A&M University in the Ocean Engineering Department. I'm a coastal engineer by training.
00:01:20
Speaker
um ah basically ah started out just wanting to have my office near the beach, on the beach, in the sand, and that's kind of why I chose this field originally, going to the to the beach and wondering how things worked out there.
00:01:37
Speaker
So ah how did that all happen? Well, i'm ah I'm originally from Germany and I grew up about 17 hours away from any ocean and and beaches. And so we had to take long trips to do that, to get to to see it. um And I decided after my undergraduate degree in civil engineering and hydraulic engineering to move to the United States as a graduate student. I went to the University of Delaware there and they did have a coastal engineering program that was very successful and basically completely roped me into that field. I did my master's and PhD there and ah made a lot of good connections, a lot of good friends to this day.
00:02:21
Speaker
And I continued in that field, um started to work in the consulting business for a couple of years, and then had the opportunity to apply for an academic position at Texas A&M University.
00:02:34
Speaker
And, uh, I, uh, got that position. It's now about 13 years ago and I'm still there. Um, what I do on a daily basis is teach students on all levels, undergraduate, graduate, or also ongoing professionals, um, about what is coastal engineering? What does it mean? How, how do things move around out there basically in the, in the coast? And I do research and, uh,
00:03:00
Speaker
um In that field, specifically, we go and deploy instruments in the bay and ocean, mostly in the Gulf region, to figure out what is actually happening out there and then try to figure out how this goes into numerical models as well as we do physical models. So setting up laboratory experiments um to find out how processes work. How can we design better engineering systems that can help us live on the coast or harness um energy or other cool things that happen in the coast.
00:03:35
Speaker
um And yeah, like I said, I've been doing this now for 13 years as a faculty member. And before that, you know, went through the but several stages of education to allow me to do that kind of job.
00:03:50
Speaker
So pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. great Great to have you. um So Peter, how about how about yourself?
Peter Ruggiero's Path and Career Insights
00:03:58
Speaker
Thanks, John. I think ah my origin story has a lot of similarities to what Yen's mentioned. It's you know really a love of the coastline and and beaches that kind of got me here.
00:04:10
Speaker
I grew up on the East Coast the United States and spent as much time as I possibly could on boats and beaches and traipsed along sand dunes, et cetera. did Didn't really know that there was a profession called coastal engineering until I was a junior undergraduate major at Lehigh University flipping through the ah course catalog.
00:04:29
Speaker
And there was an elective, a junior year elective called coastal engineering taught by ah Bob Sorenson, who had formerly had a career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And I think by day one, first lecture of that class, I was hooked for life in terms of this as my my calling kind of, again,
00:04:49
Speaker
had a lot of passion for beaches and near shore processes as a kid. And then just the fact that I could do it for a living was just spectacular. So I came out to the West Coast in the ah early 90s for graduate school, went to graduate school in the Coastal and Ocean Engineering Program at Oregon State University. um Had a great time here with some ah great colleagues and and mentors.
00:05:13
Speaker
I tried to escape academia for about a decade. I worked for the state of Washington for about four years. I worked for the U.S. Geological Survey. ah down in the Bay area California for about five years.
00:05:26
Speaker
But then the vortex of Oregon State University and Corvallis kind of brought me back. And the opportunity to be a faculty member at OSU was very compelling. So I've been in what's now referred to as the College of Earth Ocean Atmospheric Sciences for about 19 years now.
00:05:41
Speaker
um And I teach classes in coastal geomorphology and in coastal hazards, um which is really fun because that's exactly where my research
Awareness and Outreach in Coastal Engineering
00:05:50
Speaker
lies. So, uh, it makes the teaching, fun and interesting and it makes the research, uh, uh, kind of applied towards the coursework and training as well.
00:05:59
Speaker
Um, and I get this, yeah, spend maybe less time doing field work than I, uh, would like and used to. um but, uh, you know, have a lot of fun, um, you know, thinking about, uh, coastal evolution, coastal hazards, and, uh,
00:06:13
Speaker
and how coastal communities are dealing with climate change kind of going forward. So thanks again for having me. It's great to have you. I think you know one of the things that, ah Peter, you just hit on that i is a common theme that we hear, and it's something that you know that we need to address just generally, I think, as ah as coastal professionals, is that lack of appreciation that there is a career in coastal engineering or coastal science or what have you. I think you know it's, I would say, probably 60 70% guests
00:06:46
Speaker
ah talk about how they fell into coastal engineering, whether it was an experience in an academic course or um you know doing some field work, having a chance to work with a professor on a research project.
00:06:57
Speaker
And it's unfortunate because I feel like we lose out on a lot of really bright, smart, intelligent, wonderful people that you know may not recognize that there is an extremely fulfilling career path in coastal. So that's something ah that we need to work on, I think, a bit.
00:07:16
Speaker
So in terms of it, it's it's kind of interesting that
Networking and Community in Coastal Science
00:07:18
Speaker
it's ah it's a small world. um you know I've known Jens and Peter for for many years. you know Small world, Jens actually, think knew one of my former graduate students, Anthony Eble, who at one point he's like, I knew this i knew this this this German guy who does coastal stuff. And lo and behold, it was Jens.
00:07:37
Speaker
ah So it was kind of an interesting, how you run across people. all the time. And, and, know, Peter also being from the East coast, like myself, um, you know, it all, it all kind of comes full circle and connects back. And now here we are doing the podcast, you know, however many years later, I mean, I, Peter, I must have, I must have known you for 20 plus years at this point.
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah. I think it almost 30, probably by this point, John, sorry. You're aging yourself there guys.
00:08:07
Speaker
Marissa, you're the you're the you're the ah youre you're the you're the true student and you you're the new professional here compared to the rest of us, I think. Compared to the rest of you, I'm still, I just passed 10 years, graduated from undergrad.
00:08:21
Speaker
And that's like, a big hurdle for me. Not 10 years past grad school, not yet, but yeah.
00:08:29
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, while um it takes folks a while to figure out that coastal exists, but when they do, it seems like the roots have, they've entrenched roots and in it. And it's a very small community. At the end of the day, we end up always running into each other because it is a small group of folks.
00:08:53
Speaker
And how do we go about engaging other students and, know, getting them excited about coastal, making them aware of coastal um as a potential path since we seem to have, ah we're approaching kind of a shortage of folks. You know, you guys are, offense, but like y'all are aging out and we need some other folks to to fill in your shoes.
00:09:18
Speaker
Thanks, Marissa. Hey, you're welcome. Keeping it real. I'm going to retire tomorrow. know can't really age out of of positions at the university. They just keep you forever.
00:09:31
Speaker
yeah There's been two retirements at the University of Delaware just this week. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard. yeah Fair, fair, fair, fair.
00:09:42
Speaker
yeah So it's just an interesting thing. I guess we just let's let's follow down that that path of of how we engage because one of the things, I'm involved with a number of things, and one of which is working through COPRI and talking about the the lack of awareness of coastal engineering as a profession, the need for more more more coastal engineers, and that's coming directly from the consulting ah companies that are are doing coastal engineering work is they recognize this lack of shortage of of people and a lack of um a lack of so specialized expertise that coastal engineers need. so you get a lot of, ah you end up with a lot of civil engineers or environmental engineers, I'll call it masquerading as coastal engineers. That's maybe a little harsh, but point being just operating without the requisite
00:10:36
Speaker
It's called basic skill set that that coastal engineers need. So, you know, ah Peter and Jens, how do you engage students or like how do how do students find you?
Engaging Students in Coastal Engineering
00:10:45
Speaker
You know, and and I mean that at kind of like multiple levels, right? So obviously students that want to go to grad school will contact you for grad school. But like how how do you pull students in or do you try to pull students in, you know, at the undergraduate level or even at the high school level?
00:10:58
Speaker
yeah I mean, the the landscape is also ever-changing, right? you're You're constantly having to adapt to how do you reach your customers, if you if you will, or your potential customers even. And that's ah ah problem that is you know plaguing all sorts of ah areas. That's not just coastal engineering, right? That's engineering in general. That's everybody that you know either does sales or does and anything else and in the world. that We're engaging. We're trying to grow ah fields, but yes, we do have the specific challenge that ah we're a niche, if you will.
00:11:35
Speaker
um Some universities don't even quite know where to place us. um Sometimes we end up in a mechanical engineering department or we end up in a civil engineering department or as in my case, it's an ocean engineering department. all But ultimately,
00:11:54
Speaker
um we're We're always as as faculty um trying to contribute to you know spreading the word. um And that starts, of course, with the students that are already at our respective universities.
00:12:08
Speaker
um We do many events where there's... you know there's Saturday informationals or you go into ah classrooms in ah in high schools or middle schools with some cool gadget or some interesting um ah presentation to get them excited. to Like you said, you know even make them aware that something like this exists.
00:12:33
Speaker
i ah Two weeks ago, I was at career day at my daughter's middle school and ah I brought some wave buoys and some stuff for them to play with. And it's you can see that they had no idea that something like this is actually floating around out there and helping collect some data that you can do some cool things with. and's But it requires a whole lot of effort.
00:12:58
Speaker
um And, you know, we do this kind of on the side almost, if you will. Not almost. It is on the side, really, to to try and get the word out for um a field that is, you know, a... ah It's almost a secret in some ways that there are such interesting career paths that come out of it. So it's it's all at all levels, whether we engage with professionals that have been in their their careers for many years and we offer short courses or engage um or our own students or you know spreading the word on all sorts of social media platforms. I mean, universe if you if we figure out on this podcast how to best get people in, you you have a winner.
00:13:40
Speaker
ah right there because we're struggling with that all the time, right? Because we also have to do our regular work and sometimes that, you know, takes a lot of time away from going ah going out and spreading the the word.
00:13:56
Speaker
John, I can give you a couple of ah of examples of of ways we've tried to um either entrain students or um keep once they're actually already got the the bug, enable them to of kind of stick with it and get even more excited.
00:14:11
Speaker
What is, you know, via, well, my my research group ah here at OSU, I've always tried to have a couple of undergraduate, paid undergraduate um kind of interns or research fellows just, you know, going to the field with us, helping around with all the work that we're doing.
00:14:29
Speaker
And so I think um you know it's one thing to get the undergraduates excited about the field, but then to ah to keep them you know either applying for jobs after their undergraduate degree in the field or go to grad school to kind of get further training. and I think that research experience as an undergraduate is always super helpful. So we've done that quite a bit. And i right now I've got ah a fairly decent sized National Science Foundation A program that we have a fellowship program and you know we're you know around 10 new students come into that each year.
00:15:00
Speaker
It's a little little bit more broadly coastal science, but it's a great way to get ah young people involved in the science that we're doing people focused on coastal hazards and having coastal communities respond to to coastal hazards.
00:15:13
Speaker
So that's been, you know I think, fairly effective. And you can you know you can see people's, you know the light going off when they kind of get how cool the the topic is and that there's plenty of opportunities if they know where to look.
00:15:25
Speaker
I guess the other thing that i've I've been involved with now for several years is um, being on some of the organizing committees for the conferences in our field. Um, and you know there's, ah I mean, Jens is, uh, is busily preparing for the next, uh, coastal engineering conference that he's, uh, hosting and chairing. Uh, but I've been involved in this too, with the, the coastal sediments, uh, conference that happens every four years and alternates with coastal dynamics.
00:15:51
Speaker
Um, Jens and I were just, uh, the last time I saw him was, um, on a dune in Portugal on a field trip looking at some some beautiful coastlines in in Europe as part of the coastal dynamics meeting. But at those meetings, being on the organizing committee, have the ability to keep costs down for students to participate, to make sure that a lot of student abstracts get accepted for for talks and posters, to make sure that that the students are centered, that there's young coastal activities, all these kinds of things at meetings. is it's just like
00:16:25
Speaker
I know that my one of my kind of most kind of amazing experiences as as young coastal engineer was the 1996 Coastal Engineering Conference in Orlando. And just meeting other students, getting connected to some of the yeah the legends in the field at the time, all of it was just a little bit overwhelming, but also spectacular. And another reason why I stuck with this with this field. So the more that I could be part of ah helping other students now have those kinds of experiences,
00:16:54
Speaker
um I'm trying as hard as I can to make that happen.
Understanding Environmental and Coastal Engineering
00:16:57
Speaker
I can chime in here real quick that the creating experiences for students at all levels, whether they have already kind of decided or found out about the field, but also those that may have not really heard about it, um is is crucial.
00:17:13
Speaker
So the the things that... Peter mentioned for sure, was very similar to my experience as a master's student. I was able to go to an ICCE. Mine was in in Hamburg at the time.
00:17:23
Speaker
um And I came back knowing that this is what I wanted to do. It was it was literally that you know seeing where it could lead to um at an early stage and and seeing that you're appreciated in in a field. That's another aspect of coastal engineering too, but not just coastal engineering, the the coastal community, science and engineering in that field is very collaborative. you're You're walking into an area that is welcoming to you and is not You know, anything like some other fields where you hear stories about it being very cutthroat and competitive and all. There's there's healthy competition, of course, but it's, in my view, one of the most collaborative and and welcoming fields that that is out there.
00:18:09
Speaker
And part of it has to do maybe with the the type of systems that we're working with. It's fun to be at the beach and deal with waves and sediments and the vegetation out there. And then also the people.
00:18:20
Speaker
you're you're You're dealing with people's lives and and assets. You're in beautiful systems that are have all these ah types of um constraints.
00:18:32
Speaker
But at the same time, you know everything somehow works in unison. And then you have... storms and all sorts of impacts that ah these systems are facing. So what I'm trying to paint is a picture of ah of an exciting field, essentially, that I've experienced from you know early on in my my grad student career. But yeah, it took me until grad school to figure out that this field existed and that I like it.
00:18:58
Speaker
Um, and that's something that we could as a collective kind of think about is there ways to get people excited even earlier so, um, they can find their, their path.
00:19:11
Speaker
I think, yeah, as I listened to that, I think that we need, we need, we need a better, we need a better marketing person because exactly what Jens just described, i feel like is, is what many people I find what many people go into environmental engineering.
00:19:27
Speaker
thinking that that's what they're going to end up doing, right. You know, working in the environment, you know, saving the environment. And, you know, a lot of environmental engineering revolves around more on the chemistry side, the chemical processes, wastewater, soil remediation, those types of things. They're very important problems. But we actually get a decent amount of students that come to us because they had this false impression. They had no impression of what coastal was.
00:19:54
Speaker
And they had this false impression of what environmental engineering entailed. And they kind of figure out that coastal is more aligned with what their goals and objectives were. And so I think we just need to, we need to, we need to figure out how to switch that. How do we, how do we make coastal cool and not say environmental less cool, but more
Grant Writing Basics and Strategies
00:20:14
Speaker
realistic, right? How do we, how do we let people know that, Hey, this is how you can do those types of really cool activities, spend time on the beach, you know, study the waves, study the water,
00:20:23
Speaker
um you know play in a laboratory environment or even numerically model these types of systems. um And then the second thing that I think is really important is that conference piece.
00:20:34
Speaker
um I would agree. I think one of my earliest experiences was actually going to an ASBPA conference out in Portland. So I had the first time actually, think it might have been the first time I actually visited a West Coast beach.
00:20:44
Speaker
um And i love I love my East Coast beaches, but you know just the um impressiveness of the coastline in Oregon was just you know something that like took my love of the field and just kind of amplified it.
00:20:59
Speaker
But I think the way, if we can find more ways to get students engaged, I think that's that's really important. I would love to see with all these coastal engineering companies out there, I'd love to see them get involved through sponsoring students for various conferences, whether it's an ICCE or whether it's an ASBPA or Coastal Dynamics. I think there's opportunities that are sort of a little bit untapped there that I think we could do better job at.
00:21:24
Speaker
um Agreed. Yeah. right So I think the other thing that that that Peter brought up, which is great because it ties back into the purpose of of this episode, really, is that the the research experiences and being able to provide those for students.
00:21:39
Speaker
um So I think you know the first thing to do first thing's talk about a little bit is, you know yeah so we all as academics, you know we we we our careers are based on being able to you know write research proposals, get funding, follow up, write papers, and do really cool stuff. But it all starts at that proposal writing stage.
00:22:00
Speaker
um And so again, Peter you and Jens, you've both been very successful at this. So um I guess we just start with a a very basic question. you know Just broadly, like you know you know where do you start? like where Where are you looking for to figure out where you're going to apply? what types of funding do you apply for?
00:22:20
Speaker
and then we'll just kind of build from there. So Peter, maybe go first. Yeah, thanks, John. um You know, answering this question after doing this for 19 years, it's hard to ah to kind of go back to like, where do you start? Because, ah i you know, experience begets more experience and success, clearly like anything else. I guess the the the the number one philosophy that I guess I've had that ah I think has helped make me successful in this kind of realm of of looking for funding and and and writing proposals and and getting
00:22:53
Speaker
um you know being successful and in winning grants. has been, know, I hate to say being promiscuous, but ah but not looking at just a single agency or a ah ah couple of agencies, really looking at the broad, yeah as Yen says, kind of alluded to several times so far, coastal, you know, brings together oceanography, brigand brings together earth sciences, atmospheric oceanography, lots of different ah things are coming together at the beach, right, in the near shore zone.
00:23:23
Speaker
And because of that, there's a lot of different agencies that are, um, and have programs that you can actually look to or to towards funding. Um, and so I mentioned earlier, um kind of a big, uh, grant that I've been lucky enough to be part of that is funded by the National Science Foundation. That's part of their Coastlines and People program, um, which is, uh, kind of allowed us to really focus on Cascadia's coastal hazards for the last, uh,
00:23:51
Speaker
ah four years or so, it's a five-year program. And so the National Science Foundation is clearly ah place to look for in the U.S. s for for science funding. However, there is no specific coastal nearshore processes um program within the National Science Foundation. You have to look in multiple different locations. And so you really have to be entrepreneurial and and yeah kind of just exploring, turning over as many rocks as you possibly can.
00:24:18
Speaker
mean, I've been funded by lots of different programs within NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association, the U.S. Army Corps Engineers, U.S. Geological Survey,
00:24:30
Speaker
We're very lucky in Coastal now to have the U.S. Coastal Research Program.
International Collaboration and Global Perspectives
00:24:35
Speaker
um It's not a huge amount of money, but it's been relatively steady funding into the coastal field and and you know relatively new money that a lot of faculty can go after in the last, what, five or six, seven years now. um And one of the nice things about the U.S. CRP is that they really do have an emphasis on on projects that involve students at all levels, undergraduates, graduate students, et cetera. and Many of our coastal states have Sea Grant offices. And so um that's another avenue where you know I've been lucky enough to and be funded by Oregon Sea Grant over the years.
00:25:12
Speaker
um And then, of course, you know, longtime players in the coastal field like the Office of Naval Research and the other parts of the Department of Defense. and And so that's just kind of a ah laundry list of a lot of different agencies that fund coastal work.
00:25:27
Speaker
um But by, you know, again, not really putting all of your eggs in one basket, exploring that wide range, really paying attention to ah what's going on in terms of, you know, these different agencies and and where the funding is.
00:25:41
Speaker
I think that's the reason why i've I've been able to kind of maintain a research group for about 20 years now is because I have not just depended upon ah couple of of agencies for my entire career.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah, maybe I can chime in. This is is actually a really good point that Peter raises about the ah ah being flexible, for one, to also kind of ah anticipate ah where the interesting questions are leading to, what are the things that You can already prepare for that some agencies may be of interest. So you have to be kind of at the pulse of what is happening out there, what are either new methods or new challenges or things that are coming down the pipeline, if you will, that you can already kind of position yourself and also position ah yourself collaboratively within within ah groups. It's a lot of times we, ah you know, tend to forget that
00:26:39
Speaker
a lot of the coastal challenges cannot be solved by single PI projects or single kind of a little grant here, little grant there. You have to look at it almost more holistically and and have this this kind of vision of where it could go and and create groups of people that can contribute with their specific expertises, whether that's on ah a local level,
00:27:06
Speaker
um or regional expertise, because coastal systems tend to be so diverse, so different. You may have ah an expert somewhere on the East Coast that knows really well how these systems work.
00:27:20
Speaker
and And then, you know, like John said, going to the the other coast, all of a sudden, you see that there's all these different things that are happening. And What may work well as a solution in one location may, for some reasons, not work as well in another location. And you're you're learning constantly how systems react. And it's really exciting, actually. and then you come to maybe the Gulf Coast where I'm based. And then all of a sudden, you realize this is a whole other ballgame yet again.
00:27:46
Speaker
And it's the same internationally. I'm um'm currently talking to you from the Netherlands, where we ah take ah we've been for the last 10 years taking groups of students, undergraduate, master's and PhD students to spend from anywhere from two to six weeks. This group right now is here for six weeks with us.
00:28:06
Speaker
um to a mentored high-intensity research and education experience in a foreign country that is known for ah having to deal with coastal issues well, otherwise they don't exist.
00:28:22
Speaker
So that puts a whole other perspective all a sudden in students and worldwide. its It doesn't stop at the national boundary of what coastal science and coastal engineers do. And it's multidisciplinary. and And so...
00:28:36
Speaker
to come back to how how to address ah the funding things, because all starts with the right funding to be able to support students, to be able to go out and do the research projects that then in turn fund students again to do their theses and and have exciting projects.
00:28:54
Speaker
it It does come back to you know making a a business plan even and and looking at strategically, looking at where can my time spent on a grant writing exercise be most effective?
00:29:12
Speaker
Because when I started and people were telling me like, well, you're going to write 10 grants and get one. That's the typical success rate for a faculty member going into this.
00:29:24
Speaker
And i i was like, wow, that sounds really terrible. um I mean, that's a ah really bad rate of return if you think about it. Of course, once you write something, you can repurpose it, you can massage it to fit to other things or maybe other outfits, but you always have to kind of modify some things and ah and adjust, obviously. But it was kind of scary in the beginning to to hear that.
00:29:49
Speaker
um But then I, you know, sometimes you also just have to get lucky. And i I wrote a whole bunch of grants very early on in in my career.
00:30:00
Speaker
tenure position at the university and um a lot of them were funded. And then you have the other problem of, oh my God, what am i going to do now? Now I have all this stuff funded. Now I have to actually do it. And you kind of, you learn how to balance the, how many grant applications you put in versus how successful may they be with, hey, you actually have to also do the work once you get these grants. So it's really It's really looking at the whole enterprise as ah as a business and and trying to figure out where is your effort most well allocated to.
Learning Grant Writing: Mentorship and Practice
00:30:39
Speaker
And that makes and then a little bit of luck, obviously, goes goes a long way as well.
00:30:45
Speaker
And one thing I wanted to stress also is these networks that you form starting from you know your undergrad or graduate school or even before that. Those networks are um crucial in that in everything. you you know Going out there, talking to people, um understanding what others are doing and creating connections, you never know how you can you know work together or might work together on the next grant, the next project, because you've had this interaction at a conference or at a and a workshop or
00:31:23
Speaker
some other means And I think it's very important to share with also your listeners that that there is this network and this willingness of the community to to work together and do that. And that that has helped me a lot over the over the years, for sure. Nobody can do this on the on their own.
00:31:39
Speaker
Well, it's like we're all engineers and we didn't like go to school for business and like marketing ourselves and writing. Right. So it's these are softer skills, but they have big gains and they're very important.
00:31:56
Speaker
Essentially all the way through, right? So from from grad school through to the rest of your life, you're carrying through with these types of skills in writing, in kind of business practices and having...
00:32:10
Speaker
Being able to pull yourself away and see the high-level view and how things connect. Paying attention. um let's That's right one thing that Peter mentioned is is paying attention to who's funding what what, what things are being successful, where's the next thing going to be, and how can I address that kind of thing. And I don't think that is a skill that's necessarily taught or not.
00:32:37
Speaker
maybe not in all programs, folks like yourself, professors like yourself, maybe that's implicitly taught through the way that you view and how you've been successful. You're able to instill in that some sort of some of these skills into your students.
00:32:51
Speaker
But I guess that's not ubiquitous across the enterprise, if you will, if we're if we're considering this more of a business, um maybe Starfleet. I don't know. ah so that's why that's why I really like these kinds of conversations focused around kind of the how on these skills that aren't taught in grad school.
00:33:14
Speaker
Grant writing and proposal writing as a skill in itself. We're like, yeah, go write these tech reports. Great. Like that's you just you do lab reports all through undergrad.
00:33:26
Speaker
You get to grad school and there it's like, can you like help me and write this proposal? It's like, how do you even start? Where do you start? You have a blank page in front of you. Your professor says, I picked this one.
00:33:38
Speaker
We want to write to this. Where do you start? What is the personal process or method of the how of writing a proposal? so So before we, that's a great, that's a great, all awesome, awesome points. But before we get to that, I actually have a, like a proceeding question and for, for Jens and Peter, and it has to do with, you know, when you were a grad grad student, did you get any experience writing proposals or anything like that? Or did it come at a postdoc level?
00:34:10
Speaker
Because just to answer some of what Marissa, you were just saying, like, I know, i mean, I worked for Bob Dean, you know, just, absolute, you know wonderful human being, like great person.
00:34:22
Speaker
But I didn't get any experience as a PhD student writing proposals. That was something that was kind of thrust upon me in my first job. I was fortunate to go right to Stevens and I started as a research engineer, essentially a postdoc. And that's kind of where I learned those soft skills.
00:34:38
Speaker
So I'm just curious, Jens and Peter, if you if you ever got any experience as either ah grad student or undergrad or postdoc even? I don't think there was any formal training in in that. I think very few institutions um have that for the coastal programs because they tend to be relatively small.
00:35:01
Speaker
ah Most universities have some sort of, you know, clinics or or courses for the general kind of PhD student population or postdoc population. I know at at Texas A&M we do have a several programs that are offered.
00:35:17
Speaker
But um in my own experience, as you're in a niche kind of area, and and everybody's, you know, their time is very limited, you're almost it's it's a sink or swim kind of approach, if you will.
00:35:30
Speaker
When, ah when I left grad school, and I went into industry for a couple years, you learn some other skills. But um when I started my faculty position, it was literally like, okay, now you're responsible to figure out how to build your research group.
00:35:48
Speaker
And that number one includes, yes, hire some students. You get some startup funds to do that. You get some startup funds by the university to buy instruments or whatever you need for your research, but that's very limited.
00:36:01
Speaker
the The ultimate driver is you will not really be in your job long if you don't get good at this. And what other motivation do you need?
00:36:13
Speaker
Right. Um, the The other piece that maybe some folks tend to forget, a lot of us in academia are employed for nine months out of the year, just like teachers in high school or middle school in most places.
00:36:27
Speaker
And then three years out of the month, this is typically the summer, we have to write proposals and grant applications so we can add our typical monthly salary for three months or otherwise we'll be eating pasta the entire summer and our kids as well.
00:36:42
Speaker
And so that's a huge driver to make to to force you to get good at this and get good at it quickly because your startup funding will run out very soon.
00:36:53
Speaker
um that and And that's a huge driver. You can't forget the fact that there's this stick and carrot kind of system that is in place for academia in in the US.
00:37:04
Speaker
has many great advantages and options and possibilities, but there is that aspect that really makes forces us to write grants well and do it soon after you started and continuously.
00:37:18
Speaker
um So that's one aspect of it. I think that's that's important. But in terms of training, I had some ah memorable um workshops that I was able to attend um that dealt with how to write well, that resonated with me. I remember there was a ah talk by i'm ah a a French researcher at at the University of Delaware when I was a PhD student there.
00:37:44
Speaker
And his entire talk was about how to give good presentations, how to communicate well in writing, as well as in you know any other situation.
00:37:56
Speaker
And I still have that book and I, I use it all the time to write something, whether it's a two pager, you know, white paper or a, you know, 15 page and NSF proposal. It's still, you have to find your own path and your own thing that works.
00:38:11
Speaker
um But there are resources out there, but you have to kind of, big for them or have a mentor that that throws them at you in in some
Starting a Grant Proposal: Creativity and Strategy
00:38:20
Speaker
form or fashion. And one last thing on this ah point, the the program I'm currently helping run as a mentor here, where we take US students to the Netherlands, we do every day, we meet and the students have to develop their research. We start from scratch. They have to develop a research question. They have to formulate a hypothesis.
00:38:39
Speaker
They have to write an abstract. They have to write a paper essentially. propose their research to even get here. And every day, think we make them go through it and change it again and practice and practice. And they are probably sick of doing it at this point, but they come out of these programs. I've seen it now for 10 years.
00:38:58
Speaker
And their thesis defenses are so much smoother. They're so much more prepared. It's all about going and doing it and doing it over and over and and having fun doing it that ultimately has to just mesh.
00:39:15
Speaker
Well, that's excellent. Sidebar, what is this book that you refer to even now? Oh, the yeah Maps, Graphs, and Theorems. Maps, Graphs, and Theorems. I think is the title if I...
00:39:28
Speaker
um if I yeah remember it correctly. And it has it has been a wonderful guide in making things ah beautiful and clear and concise, which we don't learn a lot of times.
00:39:42
Speaker
Right. That brings me back to my original question, right, is in starting. And through just this conversation, um it's I had a realization that this is similar. It's a similar question to or a similar frustration with, say, high school students being like, why don't they teach us how to do taxes?
00:40:05
Speaker
Like, that's not a course, but that's something that we have to do in our daily lives or we go to jail, like if we do it wrong, more or less, at least for some people. And.
00:40:18
Speaker
This is a similar kind of question. Like, I wish that grad programs had some level of writing workshops to teach you how to do these skills.
00:40:29
Speaker
And I think... There's a growing frustration even more now. It's kind of exponential. The landscape is changing so quickly, but the demands on new professionals or students coming right out of school are much higher than they were back in the day.
00:40:47
Speaker
And having these types of opportunities to gain those skills while you're still in school to be as well prepared as possible for when your feet hit the ground And this isn't like a swimming pool sink or swim. We're tossing kids into the ocean and there's waves. And this this world is this climate is a lot different. I don't don't envy that ah being in that kind of position as as an 18 year old or 20 year old today.
00:41:19
Speaker
It's very different even from. you know, 10, 12 years ago, ah for me at least.
00:41:27
Speaker
But yes, going back to the question, staring at a blank Word document, the cursor is blinking at you.
00:41:38
Speaker
How do you start? What's your process? Well, I can ah i could try to address that one. But I will say that, you know, similar to Jens, I didn't get a lot of training in writing proposals when I went to graduate school. But You'll all be happy to hear that OSU does have a course in proposal writing now, that it is a I think it's a two credit class.
00:41:59
Speaker
I think the complaint that students has is it's really kind of geared around and NSF kind of traditional kind of single PI proposals. So it's a little bit um inflexible and The landscape, as you just mentioned, is ah is evolving very rapidly. So a little bit more flexibility in that class would be nice. But at least there has been some evolution in terms of ah and terms of training and giving students the ability to least think about all the things you need to be able to pay attention to. it I guess to answer your question, where do you start?
00:42:30
Speaker
This this is ah probably the the only aspect of my life where I am incredibly detail-oriented. um That is not a personality trait that I yeah i have in in most things.
00:42:42
Speaker
But requests for proposals, RFPs, you know whether it's the NSF, Sea Grant, NOAA, every word, every bizarre kind of technicality technicality you might see in an RFP was written for a reason.
00:42:57
Speaker
and you really got to start there and ah pay attention to, mean, it's not just kind of the general gist of, you know, we're interested in coastal hazards impact on, on coastal communities. It's, you know, are they specifically interested in, in students? Are they specifically interested in sandy beaches, rocky beaches?
00:43:18
Speaker
And that's every little detail of what they're asking for the proposal. So I guess the first thing that I would say is read the ah RFP, you know, and read the RFP again and again.
00:43:30
Speaker
Start writing and then read the RFP again. Double check with your colleagues to make sure they're interpreting things correctly. Oftentimes, ah funding programs have FAQs on their website or they're actually going to hold office hours if it's a relatively big program.
00:43:46
Speaker
ah Attend those, ask a million questions. Really, the the programs that are are spending money on coastal science They they are putting a lot of thought into what they actually want. And so I guess that's the that's the part of the best advice I can is be responsive to what is being asked for.
00:44:02
Speaker
um Then it's you know that this is the the best part in some ways of of being a coastal engineer slash scientist is This is where your creativity gets to really come out is, you know, it is a new idea or a newish idea that you are bringing to this kind of call.
00:44:22
Speaker
And so, I i mean, I think it's it's ah trying to have fun with it, trying to let the kind of creative juices flow as much as you can. um but you know, don't forget the details. Don't forget the data management plan. Don't forget the facilities document that they're asking for.
00:44:38
Speaker
Everything is reviewed, every little piece. ah matters. So yes, clearly the but the the big science idea, of the big engineering ideas is probably the most important. But if you, if you skip some of those small details, you're not going to be reviewed very well.
00:44:52
Speaker
Creative juices, is that short for drink heavily while you're writing the proposal or not? Well, I mean, I, you know, I can give you a fact to like why we're all drawn to this field. You know, we, you know, it's, it's near shore, it's beaches, it's waves.
00:45:06
Speaker
It's ah you know, it's kind of the, you know, the poetry and and beauty of, of the place that we're working. um You know, but I think it's, it's, it's tapping into that. Yes. And sometimes that, ah that might be a couple of adult beverages, John, but it could be a variety of other ways too.
00:45:22
Speaker
Whatever loosens the thoughts and gets those fingertips flowing. It's kind of like playing pool. I feel like like there's a point where like you, you, you get the the creative juices flowing to a point, but if you go too far, then you just suck. So you have to, you have to, life's about balance.
00:45:39
Speaker
So many things in life are just like that, right? There's also another another aspect. So what what ah Peter just described are these, um so you're you're reacting, right, to a ah prompt, if you will. you're you're a An agency has thought about kind of what they may want, and then they've spent time developing this request for ah proposals. and And then you're reading through their request and trying to read between the lines a little bit um of what could possibly be what they want and those sort of things. that' And that's a really an important aspect of our work is to to provide you know research services that are impactful, that that help solve you know or help with a challenge that that agencies have to you know or develop.
00:46:29
Speaker
There's also another aspect and um that I wanted to highlight to your listeners as well, that is um you create the challenge. You ah create a yeah a question that you would like to pursue.
00:46:46
Speaker
And it's almost like, you know, a a cold call in ah in a business setting or a ah a white paper on something that you feel, look, nobody has really thought of this. This is something that you should be thinking about.
00:46:59
Speaker
And you create your own call ah for proposals. And then it becomes interesting because then you have to figure out, well, who do I shop this around to? Who do I, ah you know, try to um hit up for maybe some startup funding for an idea, I get a little pilot going, and you'd be surprised how ah many of of the, you know, us in the faculty are ah um ah to majority relying on this model of, well, somebody's going to ask for something, then we will respond to it, right?
00:47:34
Speaker
But there are so many opportunities out there, that range from like philanthropy to like you approach organizations that may have an interest and you kind of keep going at it, develop your idea further, come up with with things that may be of interest.
00:47:50
Speaker
And you'd be surprised how suddenly that may evolve into ah into a ah proposal that somebody said, oh, this is actually um of interest for us.
00:48:01
Speaker
How about, you know, we'll set up a pilot and you keep going.
Balancing Research and Innovation in Grant Proposals
00:48:04
Speaker
So, Another thing in here that want to mention is this continuation um approach. right You form relationships with these agencies, with program managers, with people that there's also people on the other side that they have the task of figuring out how to use the funds that they have available.
00:48:23
Speaker
They may be dwindling funds, but they have some available potentially, and they they want to know how somebody can help them spend these funds in a meaningful way, and that's where you come in.
00:48:35
Speaker
And so when you start with the blank page, think about oh ah problem that you've come across or a challenge that you've come across in maybe reading the literature, being informed about what's going on or something you've heard or something you've realized or or what my advisor always used to go. He would go on vacation to the beach and he would wander on the beach for hours and then he would come back and he would have me in his office and say like,
00:49:01
Speaker
We need to look at something like this. I was just out there and nobody has really developed a model or a thing for this. Let's go and figure out how we can do a test to come up with a solve problems.
00:49:14
Speaker
and And that then you have that nucleus for your proposal and you build it around it. What methods could we use to do it? How can we address those things? So it's it's really um sometimes we limit ourselves um by not thinking a little broader and in to to get funding is the starting point for all this, right?
00:49:35
Speaker
I think that's an interesting, and it it ties back to the diversification of sort of your research portfolio that Peter discussed earlier, right? There's, you know, I know personally in the types of proposals that I go after, there's everything from highly competitive, you know, wide open type proposals.
00:49:54
Speaker
There are proposals that I write that are based off of preexisting relationships. um There are some proposals that I write where I'm 90% sure that I'm going to get the funding at the end of it.
00:50:05
Speaker
And so you don't want to rely on just your relationships or just these competitive things. But, and as it relates to all of this, I think what Jens was just talking about these, these new ideas, these creative ideas, you know, I find myself sometimes writing proposals that are very responsive to ah specific agency or a specific need that's defined by somebody else.
00:50:28
Speaker
You know, it's kind of a way to pay the bills per se. Um, But then there are these other opportunities where you can be a little bit more creative and are a little bit more wide open. So I find myself trying to kind of balance those two worlds. You know what are which are the ones that I write because...
00:50:45
Speaker
You know, they're the ones that somebody else has identified as a problem that, you know, if I get the, you know, it'll help pay the pay the bills, it'll help fund my students. But at the same time, you know, keep focused on the things that are really, really interesting to me from like the, you know, purely, you know, completely open-ended more science type questions. And, you And for me, that's been pretty successful in kind of keeping and keeping students engaged and keeping undergraduates funded and kind of bringing in enough money to keep my group supported, um but but also at the same time, not necessarily limiting the intellectual curiosity, so to speak. Yeah, don't know where I was going to go. I have a question to follow that. marissa you got a great question?
00:51:32
Speaker
Of course. I always have the questions.
Impact of AI and Real Understanding in Grant Writing
00:51:35
Speaker
Well, and towards the conversation about how things have been changing more so recently than in previous years, so and it especially brings up this boom in language learning models and AI and chat GPT and and this and that.
00:51:55
Speaker
And I'm wondering how has the grant or proposal writing process changed in that landscape? Or if you've, if If so, if you've noticed a change, or is that something that might occur in the near future if it's not already permeating through the proposal writing process?
00:52:17
Speaker
It's a great question. I guess i have not, you know, if the question is about utilizing those tools to help facilitate the writing, I have not taken advantage of any of those yet. I guess one of the things that i i feel pretty strongly about is making sure that the ah that the proposal is is actually very, very well written. So it's in you you were asking just about kind of just the mechanics of things earlier. And so, you know, don't wait till the last minute, read it over and over again, edit the heck out of it, you know.
00:52:49
Speaker
And I just, you know, the ChatGPT and others are not, I don't think quite at the level of writing that we are yet. um But, you know, certainly using two AI ML tools and in in the the research, that is something that is is permeating, you know, not everything that I do right now, but it's, I would say, you know, way more than 50% of the proposals I write have some kind of and ML tool, you know, kind of AI application that's being used. So without a doubt, that's revolutionizing the coastal field writ large. So
00:53:27
Speaker
I haven't used it for the proposal writing per se, but it's in terms of the creative juices, absolutely. So i I did an experiment in one of my undergraduate senior classes. It's ah it's a class that requires students. It's a writing intensive class um where, you know, research shows that the students get trained better in writing if they get taught by somebody in the field that they're actually supposed to write about and not just some, you know, professional treaties on English literature, which has its own merits, but when they want to learn how to write in the technical field, they should be ah instructed by somebody in that field. Right. um Anyway, so, so I've ran this experiment because of the whole, obviously, ah AI um influx and and how to use those models.
00:54:15
Speaker
And and I basically three years ago in that same class, I allowed the students or specifically encouraged the students to use um the large language type AI models.
00:54:28
Speaker
um ah And they used it. um ah as much as possible to create images, to write their texts, to fill in, you know, all sorts of things in these in these reports. And mind you, these reports have to be about data that they themselves collected with instruments um in a lab setting. So a wave flume, they collect pressure information, and they have to write about their analysis of those data and so on and so forth.
00:54:58
Speaker
And I did this for that first term and I got reports back that were beautiful in terms of the language kind of use of, you know, sentences flowing, very few typos and things like that.
00:55:14
Speaker
And then I asked the students to explain what was going on in the experiment or in their report. And they had no idea. They did not know what they actually did, what they wrote, what the content was, why they were learning this.
00:55:29
Speaker
And I did this. experiment for two years. and And last year, when I taught the class again, i specifically said, thou shalt not use any form of AI tools for this. And I gave them a reason. I don't want to just say don't use it.
00:55:46
Speaker
I gave them some examples. And I gave them the reasons like you're in an education environment, you are we're trying to teach you and and have you trained on how to do this.
00:55:57
Speaker
And a great way of learning about something is to have to write about it yourself, not have somebody else write about it. And that process of putting pen or fingertips to keyboard um is, it just creates a level or a depth of understanding that you cannot get by throwing a few bullets on a into the computer and asking ChatGPT to formulate a 15-page lab report from that.
00:56:28
Speaker
It's just not the same. There's a a process that is, yes, time consuming and comes with practice, and you cannot replace that. You can, once you know your stuff, you by all means, use these tools to perfect things.
00:56:44
Speaker
your writing that that goes out the door in the end, but do not use it to ah to have the creative process replaced um by by the the system. So i you know people ask me all the time, are you worried that your job, you know you're not going to be needed anymore because the AI can do that just as well.
00:57:05
Speaker
And said, I'm not really worried about it. um I want to know how to use those tools properly and both in whether it's coding or writing or or anything else. But I don't think these tools will replace that type of creative thought, at least not in the near near future.
Educational Challenges and Reform in Creativity
00:57:24
Speaker
And we're trying to do the same thing with the teaching. So I'm always skeptical when I see new courses that are like, yes, so we came up with a policy in how to use AI in your courses, but And to me, it sometimes deprives a student of that experience to have to create it themselves.
00:57:45
Speaker
I may get a little off topic here, sorry, but i really that was a fun experiment and i I'm glad I did it, but it's ah they're writing themselves from now on. that's that's it yeah Yeah, that's an interesting it's interesting, it's interesting that you've actually tested it out and you've used it as a part of your experience.
00:58:03
Speaker
coursework and I'm not surprised at all. I mean, I think in some senses, what you just described is, i would say not necessarily new to the field of coastal. i I've sat in many a presentation where somebody has presented the results of a numerical model and been so off base in terms of the, you know, just even like the order of magnitude of some of the quantities that were being predicted.
00:58:29
Speaker
but the pictures were beautiful and the animations were awesome. And, you know, so this type of that, that those types of things have happened, you know, have been happening for decades in coastal engineering. So it's just AI is a new tool, right. Another, you know, another way to create a pretty picture or a set of words that sound really great when put together, but you know, at at the end of the day with the depth of understanding, but I think that,
00:58:56
Speaker
I think some of that goes back, this is like way off topic. And this goes back to more broad, like societal, like problems, being people being conditioned where they want the, yeah they need to be right all the time. It has to be ah quick and it has to be perfect. And, you know, there is a benefit to learning and making mistakes and being willing to struggle and and fight with information and things and,
00:59:18
Speaker
you know, it goes well beyond just coastal engineering. It's, you know, it's a, you know, I, was as you were talking about it, I was thinking about how I coach basketball on the side and how, you know, the kids want to see the ball go in the basket all the time, even if they're not doing things technically right. And, you know, just because the ball goes in doesn't mean you did it right. Right. Like there's a whole process that you need to struggle a little bit. And so that's a sport versus this is academic and, you know, but point being the same thing, I think you,
00:59:46
Speaker
I think the struggle is something that is you know is, the value of the struggle is something that is underestimated or under undervalued you know by society. I think that's that's important. We need to make people, kids struggle still, right?
01:00:02
Speaker
To really truly understand the information. So John, we were talking about marketing earlier to young people. And if you're talking about the struggle, it's probably not the best marketing strategy.
01:00:16
Speaker
True, true, true. Maybe. We have a different word. We have to wordsmith it, I think. it's It's always, there's always something that I mentioned earlier that I was at ah at a middle school, like career day. And ah one of the kids asked, like, would I need math?
01:00:35
Speaker
Next question. Yes, always. yeah So there's, you know, you can't get them all, but, ah you know, you'll want to be truthful, obviously. You like math and like struggle.
01:00:48
Speaker
oh be that Yeah. And AI, right? Yeah. Well, so i what I find interesting in John's comment is that it is a societal problem, but I think it's also an institutional problem. So the education system as a whole and how we value grades and doing things correctly and all of that is instilled in children from pre-K through twelfth grade, even in college.
01:01:14
Speaker
So how do we as a society reform educational systems to encourage more of those creative juices, quote unquote, or more or less, and being willing to fail first attempt in learning and and being willing to accept deviations from what is mandated as the correct path or the correct answer according to our constructs?
01:01:43
Speaker
and I think it becomes a little bit easier when you're dealing with graduate students or PhD students. They still have to unlearn all of that. Well, i think I think as you kind of progress through, you know, a lot of a lot of kids, almost every kid gets pressured to finish high school, right? Most kids get pressured to go to college and finish college, right? The ones that decide that they want graduate degree, master's, PhD, et cetera,
01:02:09
Speaker
generally are not necessarily forced into that decision. It's generally something that they come to on their own. So in my experience, it's not true across the board, but they're also more likely to accept a little bit of challenge and, you know, and, and, and have a desire to truly understand more so than to just pass.
01:02:30
Speaker
Like an undergraduate might just want to pass just to get the grade and go out and work. But most master's students and most PhD students kind of understand that if they're going to be successful as a PhD student, if they're going to be successful as an academic and they're going to write proposals and all the things that we're talking about here, you can't write the proposal if you don't understand what you're talking about.
01:02:50
Speaker
It's just, you know, or you can't do the work if you get the proposal. So um I think there's a bit of that, but but it is a societal problem. Yeah. It's like how many potential students have we lost just from those first formative years, you know, in that education system?
01:03:08
Speaker
right, we don't have to go full philosophical here because it is we are trying to wrap up. So ah yeah, John, wrap it up already. My
Advice for Students and New Professionals
01:03:15
Speaker
goodness. Sure. So I think one of the things that we always leave ah or ask our guests to do as we kind of leave off is is some advice for students and new professionals. So students that are either looking to get into coastal or professionals that might be looking to get into academia, um go that route.
01:03:34
Speaker
So yeah, so what kind of advice would you give today's students and young professionals looking to get looking to go this this academic route? Well, for one, um do not rely solely on your LinkedIn or Facebook accounts or any other social media to create your connections and your network.
01:03:56
Speaker
Go to events, go to conferences, go seek out personal interactions with people in the field. Ask questions. If you're in an undergraduate situation, step outside of the comfort or uncomfort zone of you're just taking classes and and knock on faculty's doors to see if you can join ah as an undergrad researcher some project, some field work, anything that that might give you a better vantage point ah view of what does it even mean to be a doing something beyond the classroom. So get get experiences. I mean, many many students do
01:04:38
Speaker
do internships and and they learn a whole lot. And I would just say do that as much as possible and form those personal connections. Those discussions um are priceless um to have. And I feel a lot of the the students, maybe something is still kind of a wave of COVID graduates and and all sorts of other things that made people retract kind of like the clam, you just close, um,
01:05:07
Speaker
get over that as quickly as possible and and and talk to people who are all, you know, reasonably friendly um and open for discussions. And I think that's that's always, I tell all the students that I come across, go out and talk to people and find out what they actually do. You may find something really interesting you didn't even know existed.
01:05:31
Speaker
So that's one thing. I love Jens' advice. I think that's just a phenomenal thing that people definitely should do. I guess i'll I'll add to that by just saying, trust your gut.
01:05:44
Speaker
if ah If getting out into these environments, near shore, coastal zone, you know, dunes, wherever, um you know, if that is a happy place for you, if that brings you joy, realize that, that you know, there is a field of science around that. if ah If trying to make the world a slightly better place, you know, in the light of a lot of, um you know, pressures we have, whether they're human development patterns or climate change,
01:06:13
Speaker
issues, um there's a ah lot of lot of problems that are looking for solutions right now in the coastal zone. um and And that's gonna be the case for decades, centuries to come.
01:06:26
Speaker
And so there's a lot of work um out there. And it's a phenomenal field. So trust your gut, get out in the field, take a look at it, follow your passion. That's a great way, I think, to essentially close out this episode of Going Coastal.
01:06:41
Speaker
As we leave this episode, a couple, i guess, closing statements.
Conclusion and Engagement Encouragement
01:06:46
Speaker
First of all, we want to thank New Jersey Sea Grant for sponsoring the podcast. Um, second, I'll bring it up because it was mentioned in the course of our conversations here that the international conference on coastal engineering is actually coming to the United States for the first time. And I think 10 or 12 years, it's been, well, 10 years, maybe quite some time since Baltimore. So Jens has been heavily involved, I think on the organizing committee for that. So that's going to be in Galveston in, uh, May of, uh,
01:07:16
Speaker
2026. Abstracts are open until October 1st. So I'm submitting an abstract. That's why I have it in in in my mind. But um as ah both Jens and Peter said, you know, opportunities to interact at events like this and something like a conference that big doesn't happen very often in the United States, particularly focused on coastal engineering. So great opportunity. Encourage anybody that is in the field, wants to learn more about the field.
01:07:40
Speaker
um There's no better place than at a large conference like that. Um, and then lastly, uh, we at some point are are working on for looking for some sponsorship for going coastal. So anybody that's interested, uh, you can reach out to us at podcast going coastal at gmail.com.
01:08:00
Speaker
And we'll be happy to discuss things and, uh, send you some information. So with that, we'll close out again. Thanks, Peter. Thanks. again Great job, Marissa.
01:08:11
Speaker
Thanks all.
01:08:25
Speaker
which