Letters From SARA
August 15th, 2008
Dear Colleagues,
Since Yvonne's last letter from SARA a month ago, and her departure from NASA HQ, we have all missed her both personally and professionally. It is with a strong sense of loss at her absence, gratitude for all of her hard work, and a determination to do my best to keep up her tradition of serving the science community, that I write this letter to you. Since SARA arrived in Washington over a year ago both the AA and SARA have switched, but one thing hasn't changed: SARA is working hard so that you can spend more time doing the science that forwards the goals of NASA and widens the eyes of kids, and less time wrestling with what Dr. Weiler calls "administrivia."
We are doing our best to keep up SARA web page, maintaining information about solicitations so you are aware of the grant opportunities, and statistics so you can see that we are evaluating proposals faster. Please visit the what's new page to see what has changed lately on the web page. There have been personnel changes amongst the program officers which may matter more to you than those in the front office reflected in the new org chart: Ilana Harrus and Padi Boyd have come to HQ as new program officers, Pam Marcum has left, as has Charles Holmes who's role in Heliophysics has been taken over by Jeff Hayes. There will be other changes in the roster of program officers in the coming weeks. The SMD program officers have been working very hard to get out the funds earlier this year and they have been so successful that, ironically, the procurement officers were overwhelmed. But NSSC has brought in extra people and they are working down the backlog. As always, I am here to help. If something goes wrong please let me know.
Max Bernstein (a.k.a. SARA)
July 18, 2008
Dear Colleagues,
Rain pounding the windows, thunder clashing nearby, DC weather bids adieu as I write my last letter to you. How appropriate, that even rhymes. This past year was filled with great thunderstorms, torrential rains, exciting lightening and even the occasional snowstorm, each punctuating life with a clear reminder of nature's power. And then, of course, there was the weather OUTSIDE NASA Headquarters… Seriously, I have enjoyed DC weather and my experiences at Headquarters more than anyone expected, and I will miss both. I learned a lot, made several "keeper" friendships, and laughed more than I cried. It was a very special time, and I would be happy to talk to any of you about how or when time at Headquarters might fit into your scientific career path. I recommend it highly.
As usual, you can skip my blog and go straight to the What's New page (complete with hot links) to see what has changed since the last update a month ago. After the "Letters From SARA" stop coming (this really is the last), look for updates from Max that will consist of the What's New list without my usual dribble. Changes to the website will occur as information becomes available, though, so don't wait for an update list to peruse the goods.
Some of you have wondered what my seemingly sudden departure "really" means, so let me set the record straight. It means nothing other than the obvious: I got a really good opportunity to move back to the place my family calls home, and I wanted to take it. Dr. Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, assured me the work we are doing to increase efficiency and improve NASA's research programs is something he fully supports. He agreed my job responsibilities should return to two full time positions, as had been the case prior to November, 2007, so there will be a Research and an EPO lead for SMD. Both positions will now report to Dr. Paul Hertz, Chief Scientist for SMD.
Once Dr. Max Bernstein (or Marvelous Max, as many of you now call him) agreed to take on the research part of the job, I could see a pathway home. Paul, Max and I have worked seamlessly together over the past 15 months. A better team would be hard to create, and I do leave them reluctantly.
Max will have full responsibility for this website, the SARA email (or, more importantly, the boulder-blasting work that such emails create), and many of the communication efforts I maintained with the community. Paul will be the SMD presence at the major meetings if Dr. Weiler cannot attend, but you can expect to hear status reports on the research programs from Max at the Division for Planetary Science meeting this October and at some topical meetings from other divisions. Basically, I leave knowing the research programs will get the attention they deserve, so I can try my wings as the Deputy Associate Director for Institutions and Research at Ames (DADFIR?)! We have been discussing various ways the R&A MOWG can contribute now that I am leaving, and there are several ideas at play. Nothing has been decided yet, so all I can do at this point is thank them heartily for the time and effort they have given me. Their support and our conversations were quite useful, and I learned a lot through the exchange.
On to EPO:
Paul Hertz will be the interim SMD EPO lead until a full time EPO person is named, but that should happen within the next few weeks. The EPO MOWG has been extremely active and I have relied heavily upon their input on multiple occasions. For instance, SMD has adopted, with only minor changes, the wonderful vision statement they created, and their input helped inform the 2008 mid-sized project call. We had many discussions about concerns over the former supplemental grant award process, and the EPO MOWG input on that topic has been very useful as SMD considers changes to that component of the portfolio. I thank the EPO MOWG for their time and energy, and am glad they will continue into the fall, discussing items such as the type of support that could be best utilized within the divisions.
The most recent meeting of the NAC Science Committee, held at Glenn Research Center on July 9, requested an SMD EPO update. You can find the charts I used on the Events Calendar. There I summarized the current SMD EPO operating plan and gave examples of the types of awards we have made recently. Overall, SMD EPO is composed of a few key components, including Mission EPO, Mid-sized Non-Mission EPO projects (2008 proposals were due this week; see abstracts from the 2007 selections here, small additional EPO grant awards to winning PI's (see abstracts from successful supplemental grant selections here), major student collaboration projects such as the Earth science project, GLOBE, and an assortment of support activities (such as the Forums, product reviews, and general infrastructure).
Last November, when I was asked to reassess the entire SMD EPO program and to consider major changes in the way SMD conducted outreach, I suspended or postponed two significant efforts. The 15K Supplemental awards EPO program (available to PI's who have won research awards through ROSES) has not yet been restarted, but it is close. It was always our intent to bring these opportunities back, but to do so in a manner that addressed flaws many recognized in the system. Through careful listening and data gathering from the community, we now know what the major problems were with the old system. A much-improved system will likely be rolled out soon, but alas, it will not happen today and so it will not happen with me at the wheel. There was also a CAN on the street for Division Support Groups last fall, which I suspended. If carried out, these selections would have replaced the Forums that are still in place today. I suspended that CAN because many people (even those writing to the CAN) complained that the community had not had time to comment sufficiently on the call, and because SMD was unsure at that time how division support groups would fit in to a revised SMD plan. The new EPO lead will work with Paul Hertz and the SMD EPO team to decide the best course of action with regard to the suspended CAN, but in the meantime I extended the Forums through September of 2009.
The 2008 non-mission, mid-sized project proposals came in just this week, and the panel reviews will be held at the end of the summer. The reviews of these significant awards (~150-200K per year for up to four years) that contribute such an important component to the overall SMD EPO portfolio will be held in Washington DC. Increasing the participation of active researchers on such panels would be a welcome addition and would provide some degree of relief to the heavily overtaxed EPO community. If you are a researcher who is a closet EPO person, or are just interested in branching out, please contact Dr. Larry Cooper at Larry.p.cooper@nasa.gov. Volunteering does not mean you will be selected, but we would appreciate having as varied a selection pool as possible so to put together the very best panels for these important, and highly competitive, decisions.
And finally, more "change you can believe in": A draft version of a generalized Announcement of Opportunity for competed missions is available for community comment, and you can find it here. Please provide input to Paul Hertz by July 31. Paul has worked very hard for many months to solicit community input and to come up with a plan that addresses many of the major concerns. I think this is a marked improvement, and I hope you do, too. Please note, especially, the changes to EPO for all future SMD competed Missions. These include a minimum 1% for core E/PO, with no maximum limit within the cost cap, student collaboration (SC) included in E/PO (optional, but since there is no max on E/PO, there is no max on SC), and, the PI can have up to 1% above the cost cap for SC. If the SC costs more than 1%, then the rest of the SC cost is within the cost cap of the mission.
Well, the rain has stopped and so must I. It has been a pleasure serving NASA, SMD, and you, in this capacity. I look forward to joining you back on the other side of the fence (delusions of going back to my own research at some level). I will be out of email contact as we travel cross-country and until I get resettled at Ames, but you can always send a note to me through Max, by writing saraATnasa.gov. Your appreciation throughout my reign as the first (and last) SARA was heartfelt, and it really made my job worthwhile.
Keep Looking Up (and down, and all around),
Yvonne
July 3, 2008
Dear Colleagues,
It is with great excitement, but more than a touch of sadness, that I write this email to you. I have enjoyed my time at NASA Headquarters, in the Science Mission Directorate, very much, and that is due in large part to all of you. However, I have accepted an offer to return to NASA Ames Research Center as the Deputy Associate Director for Institutions and Research (Deputy to Dr. Steve Zornetzer, the third in command at Ames). My last day at Headquarters will be July 18, and that suddenly seems far too soon. But, today marks the 29th anniversary of my NASA career, and all but the past 15 months have been at Ames. So, I am sure you can understand how the opportunity to serve in the senior management of the center that gave me so much, is both an honor and an opportunity not to be missed. My husband, Dr. Dale Cruikshank and I are grateful to the NASA leadership at the Agency, SMD, and ARC levels that made my time at Headquarters, his time at the Carnegie Institution, and our return to Ames, possible.
My current SMD position as Executive Director for Research Programs (the position formerly known as SARA), will now have two leads, one for R&A and one for EPO. Both will report to Dr. Paul Hertz, Chief Scientist for SMD.
Dr. Max Bernstein will fill the R&A role, solving grant problems, working to find more efficiencies in the system, and updating the SARA the website. Max has been the backbone of the SARA work, serving as my deputy all these months, so he is the perfect replacement. There is a plan in place for the EPO lead, but that will be announced at some point in the near future. Paul Hertz will be the interim EPO lead for SMD. I am pleased to know the work we began will continue, with a team that is just as eager to serve. There will be another website update before I leave, including details about EPO changes that are underway.
I thank Dr. Ed Weiler for supporting my efforts at every turn, for understanding my desire to return to Ames, and for now making this transition seamless. I thank Dr. Pete Worden for offering me the position at Ames, and I look forward to joining the front office team there. I especially thank Paul Hertz and Max Bernstein for building a team with me, over these past 15 months, that enabled the seeds of new ideas to grow.
To my friends within SMD: Thank you very much for the support and friendship you have extended to me, and please know that the connections we have made will remain in my heart. I intend to visit SMD frequently, so this is not good-bye.
Sincerely Yours,
Yvonne
June 13, 2008
Dear Colleagues,
While I was off seeing the world and talking to many of you at various science conferences this past month (slides shown at the AGU and AAS R&A Town Halls are available for download on the Events page), Max Bernstein has been busy solving your problems and updating this website. He has added some terrific new items in the past month, and you can directly link to them from the "What's New" page. The grant stats page, for instance, has a nice summary of the improvements program officers have made in the time it takes to get grants out the door. This has not been easy, and I hope you will take a moment to thank them when you have a chance.
The Planetary Science Division budget data for FY2003-2007 is now all in one place, thanks to the insightful questions asked by Mark Sykes (Director of the Planetary Science Institute) and the answers provided by the SMD budget analysts here at Headquarters. We are now working on getting this data for the other Divisions as well.
Max has also added some new information on the FAQ page, where you can find detailed answers to your queries about proposal submissions. Please send in more questions. If it occurred to you, it likely occurred to someone else, too. Let us help!
There have been some fabulous science highlights since the last letter, and we know you join us in celebrating the successful Phoenix landing and GLAST launch! We are fortunate to live in such interesting, although sometimes challenging, times.
Warm Wishes from the Capitol,
Yvonne
May 9, 2008
Dear Colleagues,
I am about to go trekking in Peru for a couple of weeks, so I will be off the grid for a while. Max Bernstein will be on “sara watch�, so please continue sending your questions, issues, and ideas to the sara e-mail address. Yes, that address still works even though my job title is changing. As far as I know, the email address will continue to work, probably long after people forget what sara ever stood for, so feel free to write us there.
There was a snafu that showed up on NASAwatch this week, and we apologize for the heartburn our typo caused a few folks. The NSPIRES announcement that announced a cancellation of a ROSES element said the right words, but used the wrong Appendix number. We are definitely NOT canceling the one that was mistakenly written at first. Rather, we are canceling something that never got started. This is the correct announcement:
NASA ROSES-08 Amendment 8: Cancellation of Space Policy Research program : "This amendment cancels the program element in Appendix E.6 entitled "Space Policy Research."
Speaking of announcements, Ed Weiler is now the official AA, having moved from the “interim� to ‘permanent� just yesterday. The announcement did not come as a surprise, but it was certainly a welcomed statement (well, maybe not for the folks at GSFC who hoped he would be returning soon as their Center Director).
And while I am updating you on items of interest, let's talk about the status of the supplemental grants (to R&A proposers) for EPO that were suspended last November pending the evaluation of the SMD EPO program. We are getting closer to a decision on how to proceed, and we will definitely be bringing this opportunity back in a simplified form. However, the call will likely not come out until later this summer and the funding cannot occur before early next year at the soonest. It is my intention to make sure everyone who has won a grant since we suspended the 15K supplements at the end of November 2007 will have the chance to apply when we do open the call again, but please be patient.
The EPO MOWG and the SMD EPO staff are working on this. I can assure you the gory details of finance that have factored into this delay are not issues you really want to know about. The philosophical issues that I care most about, in terms of providing a better product, are hard enough. AND- if you have input on how we can simplify the previous process, please send those thoughts to saraATnasa.gov. Now is the time to do so, as we are actively working on ways to make this a better process for all.
The next SARA website update will occur no sooner than June 13, due to a combination of personal and business travel. See the events page to find out which meetings I will hold R&A and EPO Town Halls in May 29 and June 2.
The R&A MOWG and the EPO MOWG are still alive and well, and they are resources I urge you to call upon. You can find their contact info under the appropriate page on the left hand bar of this website or go to the highlighted links in this sentence.
The confidential sara email is still operational, and Max Bernstein and I are the only two who read it. Hundreds of you have used it in the past year, and through that effort we resolved many of your grant related problems. There has been a drop to nearly zero in the email traffic to that address, though, and I find it most interesting. The drop occurred well before the change in administration, and it is well correlated with the increased hits on several of these web pages. As a scientist, I find that intriguing because I believe it indicates that you are getting the information you needed, and the frustration levels are dropping. If this is true, great! If not, let me know what we can do better.
Alternatively, you may have written and the cookie monster may have eaten your message. There have been intermittent computer problems that sometimes keep the mail from reaching us, and sometimes we do not know that has happened. Write again if you did not hear back- no letter goes unanswered intentionally!
Please see the What's New page, to find out what we have updated since your last visit. In the future, updates will occur between sara letters. So, you do not have to wait a month to see improvements in the site content.
Thank you for your support and continued contributions to NASA Science. The American public and the world benefit from our successful teaming.
Sincerely, Yvonne