Hi Everyone, The CELS leadership has been working to develop an Early Career assistance program for junior staff members. The goal of this program is to provide an opportunity for early career staff to receive mentoring in the areas of long-term planning, developing an R&D vision, and developing good presentations and elevator pitches. One key tangible goal of this program is to improve the proposal development and writing skills of the junior staff. Relevant to CPS, building a good collaborative skill set and wider scientific vision will be important elements of the broader context of this program; increased engagement with the rest of CELS and the Laboratory is expected to be a natural beneficial byproduct. Eligibility: Staff who are within 10 years of receiving a PhD or highest degree (although we will allow a few exceptions to this timeline). Long-term Research/Visioning: Develop a 5-year plan. Application Process: Eligible participants should submit a paragraph or two about their interest in this program, describing their research area and identified areas of opportunity. There should be sufficient (succinctly stated!) information to help in mentor selection. Please send this paragraph to me by 09/01/2020. Selections will be made via an internal CPS process. Expectations and Deliverables: Successful candidates will be matched with mentor(s) chosen from CELS; the mentor(s) and early career staff will be asked to develop a plan to identify what will be accomplished on a monthly basis for the period of October, 2020 through March, 2021. The 5-year plan should be aligned with the Argonne lab plan, the CELS strategy, and national scientific and DOE priorities (including that of specific program offices). By the end of March, it is expected that the early career staff member will have been sufficiently exposed to career and proposal development strategies; they should be ready with a written vision document (2-pages), draft milestones for a 5-year career plan, and an elevator pitch to the CELS DDs. Resources: We will use this program to build a repository of helpful links, successful proposals, reports, and helpful suggestions for proposal writing. As always, Tim and I will be happy to answer any questions. Best Salman