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Posted on: October 28, 2010
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Posted By: Laura Hoopes

NSF Program Officer: Is this a position for you to consider?

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Dear Friends,
One of the topics suggested by readers earlier was more about National Science Foundation Program Officers: Is this a position that might interest women in science?  What do they do?  Where do they come from?
 
I found an article on blogs.technet by Stephen Ibaraki about Dr. Jan Cuny, an NSF Program Officer. She went to Princeton University in the earliest days of coeducation, right after women were first admitted.  After completing college,  receiving an advanced degree in Computer Science, and serving as a faculty member, she came to NSF in 2004 to head upBroadening Participation in Computing Initiative and the CS 10K Project.  Like most program officers at NSF, she was in academia before coming, in her case at University of Oregon and previously at other universities.
 
 In the interview, here are some of her answers. "What were the biggest three challenges in your career and how did you overcome them?
"...Lack of confidence....I mostly overcame it by being very stubborn....Having children and trying to get tenure at the same time....Not sure how we did it but we had lots of energy....My biggest challenge now is to get the people who could make a difference on the issues that I'm working on to take these issues seriously...I'm not sure not sure how I'll overcome these challenges other than to work on it relentlessly...."
 
 From my own experience, I know that some program officers return to their former academic positions while others continue at NSF for the rest of their careers.  Depending on the area to which they are assigned, they may deal mostly with individual grant proposals, or like Dr. Cuny, they may work to coordinate the NSF's efforts with those of other like-minded government and non-government entities.
 
From the Cuny interview, here is the question we keep discussing (see here and here) about CS and how to get more diversity: "How are women, minorities and persons with disabilities represented in computing and what can be done to increase their representation?
"....Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities (who are 70% of the population) are significantly underrepresented in computing. The programs that we run called 'Broadening Participation in Computing' run programs from middle school all the way through graduate faculty range. We look at engaging students and look at ways to entice them into computing....It's really important that once you've got the kids really engaged in computing that you have a really good set of courses for them so that they can take that engagement and go further with it....We also have to understand that there are issues for each of these underrepresented groups that we are going to have to deal with...." 
 
Let me know what other questions you have about program officers, and I will look for more answers.
 
cheers,
Laura 
Comments
6  Comments  | Post a Comment
Community

Hi hmcbride,
I will see if I can find a program officer to comment on how it feels long-term. Or maybe to make another posting about this issue.
cheers,
Laura

From:  Laura Hoopes |  November 9, 2010
Community

I talked to some program officers from the NIH as well who had interesting paths to the positions. Some were from industry which made sense to me given the translational nature of NIH funded science. Some were "on leave" and some had made the change to giving out the money instead of writing for it as postdoc girl stated. It's certainly intriguing, although it would also be depressing to see so many good people not get funding. I'd like to hear more from the program officers as to how they feel about their positions. Is it one they could handle for the long term?

From:  hmcbride2000 |  November 9, 2010
Community

Hi scifemXX,
If you go to the NSF web site at NSF.gov, there will be a button along the left side marked "career opportunities" and if you click it, you can find out all the openings available there at present. You can also contact specific program officers, say in chemistry or biology divisions, and ask if they know of any upcoming openings. Good hunting!
cheers,
Laura

From:  Laura Hoopes |  November 8, 2010
Community

I've always wondered how they got program officers. I assume people just contact NSF and ask about openings. It's good to have a sense that they would consider academics, and also that at least some places would give academics leave to go there for a year or two. Does NSF advertise for program officers?

From:  SciFemXX |  November 8, 2010
Community

I'm glad you're interested, postdoc girl. Later this month, we'll have a posting on being a pollicy intern at American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, which is a short term opportunity that can lead to lots of interesting options to follow, by another guest forum poster, so stay tuned!
cheers,
Laura

From:  Laura Hoopes |  November 8, 2010
Community

Great! Sounds very interesting to give out money and influence the direction of research or how groups work together. Maybe more fun than constantly begging for money to do my experiments.

From:  postdoc girl |  November 8, 2010
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