NPAW 2025: Crafting a Compelling Grant Proposal (Panel)

• The elements that make a research grant proposal stand out to reviewers
• Strategies for defining and refining research objectives when starting a proposal
• Effective ways to structure a narrative and tell your research ‘story’
• The importance of tailoring proposals to a sponsor’s mission, and how to do it effectively
• Tips for putting together realistic, fundable budgets

PANELISTS AND MODERATOR

Moderator:

Dr. Cheryl Wellington - Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Panelists:

Dr. Shernaz Bamji - Professor, Department of Cellular & Physiological Sciences

Shernaz Bamji is a Professor in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, is the current Associate Director of the Center for Brain Health at UBC, and is the incoming President elect of the Canadian Association for Neurosciences. She received her Ph.D. at McGill University and did her postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco, where she also gave birth to both her children. Dr. Bamji has a long-standing interest in understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying neural connectivity and synaptic plasticity. Her work has provided valuable information about fundamental mechanisms underlying learning and memory, as well as how these processes are perturbed in diseased states.

Dr. Leila Harris - Professor, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability

Leila M Harris is Professor with the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability and with the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. She is currently serving as Strategic Advisor, Graduate and Postdoctoral Funding, GPS. Dr. Harris has served as an adjudicator on diverse funding committees, from SSHRC, to the US National Science Foundation, to the EU Horizon’s program and multi-agency funding panels.  She also has adjudicated graduate awards over several decades.  Harris’s research considers water politics, development, and sustainability concerns from interdisciplinary perspectives, most notably through focus on equity and justice. She has worked in various contexts, including in Turkey, Ghana, South Africa, and Indigenous contexts of North America, and has participated in several international research and training networks, including those focused on water insecurity and justice-possibilities for river governance. 

Dr. Nicholas Coops - Professor, Department of Forest Resources Management and Canada Research Chair in Remote Sensing

Nicholas Coops is a professor at the University of British Columbia and a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in remote sensing. Nicholas is also the Head of the Department of Forest Resource Management, in the Faculty of Forestry here at UBC Vancouver. Nicholas leads the Integrated Remote Sensing Studio (IRSS), a research lab investigating and demonstrating applications of remote sensing data to environmental and forest production issues with 30 PhD, MSc and Postdocs.

His overall research program is focused on increasing our understanding of the interaction between vegetation pigments, biochemistry and structure and how remote sensing technologies can be used to estimate properties of vegetation at a range of spatial and temporal scales.

Dr. Ali G. Madiseh - Associate Professor, Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering and Canada Research Chair in Advanced Mine Energy Systems

Ali’s research includes the study of various mechanical and energy systems with a specific emphasis on mining and petroleum industries. His research team focuses on developing novel solutions for maximizing energy efficiency, improving system performance, preventing waste of energy and replacing fossil fuels with renewable energies. Their work involves both analytical and experimental studies of heat transfer, fluid mechanics and transport phenomena and includes substantial numerical simulations as well as laboratorial and site experiments. Their emphasis is on application of geothermal, wind and solar energy systems in mining and petroleum as well as other industries as well as developing new waste heat recovery and energy storage systems. The eventual goal is to use an integrated and interdisciplinary approach to help industries to improve their processes, cut their operating costs and reduce their environmental footprint.

Registration

Registration in this session is required and is now open. Those successfully registered will receive a registration confirmation within one week of the session date.

NO-SHOW PENALTY: If you register and do not attend or cancel after 3pm on the day before the event, it may affect your eligibility to join future events. To avoid this no-show penalty, please cancel by at least 3pm the day before the event by e-mailing postdoctoral.fellows@ubc.ca.

Accessibility

If you have a disability, medical condition, or other accessibility require that may affect your full participation in the event, please email postdoctoral.fellows@ubc.ca in advance of the event.

PDFO EVENT COMMUNITY AGREEMENT

The PDFO has created a community agreement for our events in order to foster an inclusive, welcoming, and respectful environment in which all event attendees feel safe and supported.

By participating in a PDFO event, we commit ourselves to:

• Treating one another with kindness, courtesy and respect in all interactions;
• Engaging in gracious, active listening and valuing others’ opinions;
• Not dominating discussions so that others can share during the session;
• Ensuring that any potentially confidential or sensitive information shared as part of the session is not shared outside of the session; and
• Actively participating in the session.