From the Asst. Director

BIO Welcomes New Division Director in IOS

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I am pleased to welcome Dr. Denise Dearing to BIO as the new Division Director in our Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS). Dr. Dearing joins us from the University of Utah where she is a Distinguished Professor and was previously the Inaugural Director of the School of Biological Sciences, and Chair of the Department of Biology before that.

Dr. Dearing’s research focuses on the ecology and evolution of dietary specialization in mammalian herbivores. In that work, she has trained dozens of postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates. She and her lab seek to understand the physiological, microbial and behavioral mechanisms used by herbivores to metabolize or circumvent dietary toxins. Her past NSF funding includes a postdoctoral fellowship; awards from IOS, including a CAREER award and other grants for work in nutritional ecology and disease ecology from multiple BIO divisions.

In her new role, Dr. Dearing will lead IOS in supporting the research community in advancing our understanding of organisms as integrated units, including in how they behave, develop, and interact with a changing environment.

I want to personally thank Dr. Michelle Elekonich for her service as Acting Division Director for IOS over the past year and more, and both Dr. Charles Cunningham and Dr. Edda “Floh” Thiels for serving as Acting Deputy Division Director while Dr. Elekonich took on her interim role. All of their work in guiding IOS during this transition is greatly valued and appreciated.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Dearing.

From The AD: Acknowledging the Service of Alan Tessier

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Dear BIO Community,

At the end of 2021, BIO said goodbye to our long-time colleague Alan Tessier as he began his retirement.

A headshot of Alan Tessier
Alan Tessier has retired after 17 years at NSF.

Over the last several years, Alan served as my right hand – and sometimes my left, too – in his role as Deputy Assistant Director for the Directorate. Around the halls of BIO, Alan was known for his nearly encyclopedic knowledge of NSF policy and procedures and forethought about how changes thereto might be interpreted and who they would impact. Personally, I found his openness to team building, community engagement, and sharing all that he knows as some of his greatest contributions.

Trained as an aquatic ecologist, Alan spent 17 years with NSF, beginning as a rotating program director in the Division of Environmental Biology, through a time as Deputy Division Director in the Division of Environmental Biology, and ending as Deputy Assistant Director for BIO.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Alan had a distinguished career in academia, including as a professor at Michigan State University.

Alan’s imprint on BIO and NSF cannot be captured in words, but key aspects of his work include efforts to advance convergence and environmental research. Alan served Executive Secretary and Chair of the Working Group for the Environmental Research and Education coordination activity and was critical in the development of what is now the Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems (DISES) program.

As I noted, he was also a champion of strong teamwork between program officers and administrative staff, which has created a positive work environment in BIO and our ability to support the scientific community so well.

Engaging you all, the community, was also one of Alan’s foci. He promoted diverse connections with and support of the research community, including leading BIO’s transition to eliminating deadlines for the core programs and supporting community engagement with NEON as the facility came online to maximize its utility for cutting edge research.

As you can see, and I hope as you experienced, Alan did a lot over his time at NSF and made DEB, the BIO front office, the Directorate, and the whole agency better for it.

We thank Alan for his service, will miss him, and wish him well in retirement.

Sincerely,

Upcoming NSF Merit Review Survey

NSF_BIO

Dear colleagues, 

Next week, recent NSF applicants and reviewers will be emailed a survey link to provide feedback on their experience with the merit review process. Eligible individuals will be those who have submitted and/or reviewed proposals between October 1, 2018 and September 30, 2020. Results from this survey will help NSF understand critical elements of the merit review process, including perceptions of fairness, quality, satisfaction, and burden for individual directorates and NSF as a whole. In the past, survey findings led to improvements, such as revisions to reviewer training to enhance the quality of reviews used to make funding decisions.   

If you have submitted or reviewed a proposal within the past two years, check your inbox on October 19 for your personal link to the survey. Your feedback is a crucial to the ongoing improvement of the merit review process. If you do not see the email in your inbox, check you spam folder. Please reach out to MeritReviewSurvey@nsf.gov with questions.

This survey is sponsored by the Office of Integrative Activities, and survey invitations will come from Insight Policy Research, an independent contractor conducting the survey.  PI and reviewer participation is voluntary and confidential. This survey should take no more than 20 minutes. 

 Thank you in advance for helping us continually improve the NSF merit review process.

NSF Launches New Opportunity for Professional Societies to Promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

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The National Science Foundation has recently released a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) encouraging professional societies to work together to form networks to promote cultural change in biology to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. The DCL, called LEAPS (LEAding cultural change through Professional Societies) of Biology, intends to fund conference proposals, planning proposals, and Research Coordination Network (RCN) proposals that will facilitate collaboration among biology professional societies with the goal of broadening participation of the STEM workforce at scale.  

This DCL encourages submissions from societies focused on broadening participation (SACNAS, AISES, ABRCMS) and/or from the NSF INCLUDES National Network. Professional societies are uniquely positioned to lead cultural, structural, and social change through appointing or electing society leaders, convening meetings, publishing, issuing awards, providing training, and creating career support networks. They can shape the culture at the scale of the (sub-) discipline and have the potential to influence other disciplines, institutions, and departments.

Potential partnerships could also include Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and other organizations/institutions serving diverse populations. The participation of multiple societies from more than one biological discipline and/or of multiple societies from the same discipline that range in membership size is also encouraged.  

For more information, please read the full DCL. To be considered for funding in fiscal year 2021, proposals should be submitted by May 14, 2021. Proposals submitted after that date will be considered for fiscal year 2022 funding.

For questions concerning the DCL, please contact one of the following Program Directors:

From the AD: BIO “No-Deadline” Solicitations Migrating to Research.gov

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As part of NSF’s ongoing efforts to innovate and migrate proposal preparation and submission capabilities from FastLane to Research.gov (see Important Notice No. 147), the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) has announced that proposal submissions for our “no-deadline” programs will migrate to Research.gov beginning with revised solicitations to be released in the near future. This change was announced in a Dear Colleague Letter (NSF 20-129) released today and is the first phase of a migration of all NSF solicitations to Research.gov.

Specifically, the following programs will have new solicitations published in the coming weeks at which point investigators should begin submitting proposals through Research.gov. There will be a grace period of 90-days from the date on which the new solicitations are published during which proposals can still be submitted through FastLane. After the 90-day period, the new solicitations will no longer be available in FastLane and any new proposals must be submitted through Research.Gov (or Grants.Gov).

The programs whose solicitations will migrate from FastLane to Research.gov are:

Research.gov improves the user experience while also reducing administrative burden. The system is also flexible enough to meet both users’ changing needs and emerging government requirements. A significant fraction of proposals is already being submitted through Research.gov and investigators report it to be intuitive to use. We do not anticipate that the change to Research.gov will have significant impacts on the submission process. This migration will not affect the merit review process in any way.

To support the community through this migration, technical support and FAQs and videos on proposal submission through Research.gov are available. In addition, we are offering a series of BIO-wide virtual office hours during which you can ask questions of BIO Program Officers.

The virtual office hours will occur on Monday, October 19 at 11 a.m. EDT; Tuesday October 20 at 10 a.m. EDT; Wednesday, October 21 at 1 p.m. EDT; and Thursday, October 22 at 3 p.m. EDT. Members of the community can register for these sessions via NSF.gov.

Finally, if you have any immediate questions please reach out to BIOnodeadline@nsf.gov, which is monitored by Program Officers from across BIO.

Sincerely,

Image of the signature of Dr. Joanne Tornow, Assistant Director for Biological Sciences

Joanne S. Tornow, Ph.D.

Assistant Director

From the AD: A Letter to The Biological Sciences Community

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The Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), and NSF more broadly, understands the impact that COVID-19 and the responses thereto are having on the research community. We have heard from numerous community members and societies about lab closures, stresses associated with transitions to virtual classrooms and determining new methods of supporting students, and the loss of administration time and resources to COVID-related campus-wide planning. We know that these are affecting, and will continue to affect, the research enterprise by straining resources, ending or delaying planned research and/or impeding training and education, and we are committed to being responsive to the community in these difficult times. With this post, I would like to share with you information about NSF’s current operations and provide guidance to current awardees. But, most importantly, I want to emphasize that personal safety is the highest priority and I hope that you and your loved ones stay safe and healthy in this difficult time.

NSF current operations:
BIO program staff are on duty and available to the community, albeit virtually, and we welcome your proposal submissions at any point in the coming weeks and months. We are continuing to review proposals and make awards in a timely fashion and have implemented fully virtual panels to complete this process. Based on feedback from BIO panelists during my own video conversations with them, the high quality of the NSF merit review process is being sustained. Moreover, because NSF is uniquely prepared to respond quickly to address scientific unknowns concerning this coronavirus, Agency staff are working hard to review the literally hundreds of requests for RAPID funding being submitted each week.

As a reminder, the core programs throughout BIO do not have submission deadlines and we have extended the few special programs that do have deadlines. An agency-wide list of solicitations and Dear Colleague Letters for which deadlines have been extended can be found here.

Current awardees:
On March 23, NSF released guidance for all awardees on how to mitigate the impacts these challenging times are having and will have. NSF Director France Córdova also released an accompanying letter to the research community noting that “we are committed to providing the greatest available flexibilities to support your health and safety as well as your work.”

For current awards, grantees and program officers also have flexibility to provide no-cost extensions. NSF gives all awardee organizations the authority to extend an award for one year of no-cost extension (NCE) without needing to seek NSF approval. That first-year extension is called a Grantee-Approved extension and should be utilized prior to requesting an NSF-Approved extension. Your organization’s grants office simply needs to inform NSF, two weeks prior to the end of the award, that they intend to use a Grantee-Approved NCE by sending a notification to NSF via Research.gov. If additional time beyond the first year of extension is required, a formal request for an NSF-Approved NCE can be submitted by the organization’s grants officer via Research.gov prior to the end date of the grant. BIO program officers will accommodate such requests for a second year of NCE associated with delays due to COVID-19.

Finally, I and all the Directorate staff are interested in hearing how, in addition to those ways outlined above, BIO and NSF can mitigate the longer-term harm of COVID-19 on U.S. research and training. We will be holding a series of four BIO-wide virtual office hours next week where you can share concerns, ask questions, or offer your suggestions on how we can do more to address this national emergency. Sessions will be held at 4 pm Monday, March 30; 3 pm Tuesday, March 31; 2 pm Wednesday, April 1; and 1 pm Thursday, April 2; all times are EDT. Please feel free to attend the session that best fits your schedule; representatives from across BIO will be in attendance during each session.

For more information on NSF’s activities and response to COVID-19, please visit our coronavirus information page; this site is updated regularly.

Sincerely,

Image of the signature of Dr. Joanne Tornow, Assistant Director for Biological Sciences
Joanne S. Tornow, Ph.D.
Assistant Director for Biological Sciences

 

From the AD: Save the Date for BIO’s 2020 Distinguished Lecture Series

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Dear Colleagues,

Please join the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) for the 2020 Distinguished Lecture Series.

BIO’s Distinguished Lecture Series brings eminent researchers to NSF Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia to speak to BIO scientists, other scientists in the agency, staff members, and a broader Washington-area audience about their research.

Below is more information about the 2020 Distinguished Lecture Series Speakers. Refer to BIO’s homepage for updated information as the lecture dates get closer.

If you wish to attend in person at NSF Headquarters (2415 Eisenhower Ave, Alexandria, VA 22314), please contact Nick Hunt (jamhunt@nsf.gov). Advance sign-up requests are required, and guidelines for visiting NSF are at https://www.nsf.gov/about/visit/

I hope you will be able to attend what are sure to be stimulating and thought-provoking lectures.

Sincerely,

Image of the signature of Dr. Joanne Tornow, Assistant Director for Biological Sciences

Joanne Tornow, PhD
Assistant Director for Biological Sciences

 

BIO’s 2020 Distinguished Lecture Series

Image of Dr. Michael Lynch Dr. Michael Lynch

Biodesign Center for Mechanisms of Evolution

Arizona State University

January 22

11-12pm

E3410
Image of Dr. David Micklos Dr. David Micklos

Dolan DNA Learning Center

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

March 5

3-4pm

E3410
Image of Dr. Jef Boeke Dr. Jef Boeke

Institute for Systems Genetics

New York University Langone Medical Center

May 21

11-12pm

E3410
Image of Dr. Hopi Hoekstra Dr. Hopi Hoekstra

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Harvard University

September 24

11-12pm

TBA

 

From the AD: Remembering Dr. Mary Clutter

NSF_BIO

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Dear Colleagues,

I am deeply saddened to inform you of the passing of Dr. Mary Clutter.

 

Image of Dr. Mary Clutter
Dr. Mary Clutter Image credit: National Science Foundation

Dr. Clutter served as the Assistant Director (AD) for the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) from 1992 to 2005, during which time she served two stints as acting Deputy Director for NSF.  Prior to that, she served as Division Director for Cellular Biosciences in what was previously the Directorate for Biology, Behavioral, and Social Sciences (BBS), as Science Advisor in the Office of the Director from 1985 to 1987, and as a Program Director starting in the 1970s.  She passed away on Sunday, December 8, 2019.

 

Dr. Clutter was a native of Pennsylvania and attended Allegheny College, where she obtained an undergraduate degree in biology.  She later earned her masters and doctorate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh.  She joined NSF as a rotator from Yale University and subsequently was appointed permanently.

Dr. Clutter was always about science first.  Her prescient view of 21st Century Biology predicted it to be integrative from the molecule to the environment, interdisciplinary across all disciplines, driven by a revolution in genomics and computational biology.  She championed plant biology and genomics, advocated for the creation of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and fostered innovative funding mechanisms within BIO (e.g., Research Coordination Networks and Graduate Research Traineeships) that were subsequently embraced agency-wide.  Furthermore, her commitment to advancing women in academe, in science, and at the NSF was a major hallmark of her time as AD for BIO.  Most notable was her policy memo that prohibited BIO funding of workshops and conferences that did not include women among the presenters, a courageous stance that was noted at the time by the Washington Post.  Dr. Clutter is also credited with the second largest reorganization within NSF in 1992 that resulted in the creation of the Directorates for Biological Sciences and Social, Behavior and Economic Sciences.

Dr. Mary Clutter leaves behind a vibrant legacy that will live on in the memories of her NSF colleagues. We are forever grateful for her service, dedication, and visionary leadership.

Sincerely,
Image of the signature of Dr. Joanne Tornow, Assistant Director for Biological Sciences
Joanne Tornow, PhD
Assistant Director for Biological Sciences

 

From The AD: New Funding Opportunities for Understanding the Rules of Life

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Dear Colleagues,

BIO is excited to announce to the biological sciences community two new funding opportunities under the Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Big Idea: 1) Epigenetics and 2) Microbiome Theory and Mechanisms (MTM). The URoL Big Idea seeks to create a new paradigm at the convergence of science, engineering, and technology that will elucidate theoretical frameworks (rules) to enable prediction of the diversity of evolutionary solutions that biological systems use to support life processes seen across the planet. The National Science Foundation has recently invested $36 million in the first projects under the URoL portfolio from two separate solicitations and across more than thirty institutions.

The Epigenetics and MTM opportunities represent a collaboration across Directorates and Offices within the National Science Foundation. Specifically, Epigenetics intends to enable innovative research and promote multidisciplinary education and workforce training in the broad area of epigenetics, while MTM aims to understand and establish theory and mechanisms that govern the structure and function of microbiomes.

Integrative perspectives and research approaches from more than one research discipline are welcomed, as this is a cross-Directorate effort. The interdisciplinary scope of both programs aims to provide unique training and outreach opportunities to train the next generation of scientists in a diversity of scientific approaches and to engage society more generally.

Both programs offer two submission tracks:

  • Track 1 – for projects with a total budget of up to $500,000 and an award duration of up to 3 years, and
  • Track 2 – for projects with a total budget of up to $3,000,000 and award duration of up to 5 years.

For complete details on deadlines and submission guidelines, refer to the Epigenetics program website or contact the Epigenetics Team (epigen@nsf.gov), and the MTM program website or the MTM Team (microbiome@nsf.gov).

BIO looks forward to continuing working on this cross-Directorate venture.

Sincerely,
Image of the signature of Dr. Joanne Tornow, Assistant Director for Biological Sciences
Joanne Tornow, PhD
Assistant Director for Biological Sciences

A Letter from the Assistant Director

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Dear Colleagues,

BIO is excited to be back to work following the long lapse in appropriations. We thank the biological sciences community for its patience and its support of students, postdocs, faculty, technical and administrative support staff and researchers during this challenging time.

Fortunately, because BIO core programs have a no-deadline submission process and relevant systems remained online during the shutdown, BIO has experienced few disruptions to our division programs. However, this also means that we have a backlog of submitted proposals and missed panels. As we get our systems up and running again, we are establishing processes that will enable us to focus on high-priority areas, particularly in light of the three-week continuing resolution. Our staff is working hard to reschedule cancelled merit review panels and process awards, and is prioritizing in particular the review and funding of postdoctoral fellowships and REU site awards. As we work to expedite the return to normal operations, I call upon the volunteerism of the reviewer community and ask for your flexibility in participating in rescheduled and virtual panels.

In addition to addressing the backlog of activities from the lapse, BIO remains committed to delivering on ongoing competitions, including the Understanding Rules of Life competitions. Please note that deadline dates for BIO special solicitations and DCLs remain unchanged.

A special note to our colleagues in the ecological sciences community about the changes that took place at the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) during the lapse in appropriations: Now that NSF has resumed operations, we are re-engaging with all key stakeholders in the project. I remain fully committed to ensuring that NEON realizes its scientific promise as it transitions to full operations. I wish to express my gratitude to all those who have worked together to bring NEON construction to the finish line, including Battelle staff and NEON’s Science, Technology and Education Advisory Committee (STEAC), and thank the STEAC for their thoughtful engagement and continued commitment to NEON.

I once again thank you for your patience in this challenging time and ask for your continued support as we work to get back on track as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
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Joanne Tornow, PhD
Assistant Director for Biological Sciences