Getting defensive

I submitted a grant proposal back in August that would provide my salary if funded. The review of applications and funding decisions are made over the course of months. I already knew my scores from the committee review and that they generally meant "solid proposal with several minor concerns" and are borderline to what gets funded in general. Apparently after the committee meeting though, the individual agency has some subjective/objective ability to decide to whom they give their money, and my PI suggested I contact the program officer (PO) after I got comments back, particularly because I have additional preliminary data.

Only the comments I received, for the most part, are nothing I can address without sounding defensive (I think). There were a few main concerns that came through the critiques.

1. Reviewers wondered whether I was the person who generated the preliminary data in my grant. I suppose I could have stated in there that I generated the data (although a grad student did collect the samples I used for some of the experiments). I think I used "we", and maybe that was a red flag? Writing conventions in the sciences are in flux though, and many people still use "we" even if they really mean "I". Although I recognize that in some labs data might be handed over to increase funding and not all post-docs are competent and sometimes research hits serious snags that limit the amount of data, I had been in the lab 8 months. I would hope I had generated some data. So yes, the data are mine. And yes I had other data I did not squeeze in. I could easily let the PO know this by telling him I have generated additional promising preliminary data on top of the data I had generated for the proposal.

This also made me think about how I should present data when I resubmit my proposal. After all, some of the data will then be data generated by the students who I have been supervising. That requires quite a bit of time in and of itself. I developed working protocols and gathered reagents for techniques that had not been done in over 10 years in the lab (and which I had never done myself). I consult with them on a daily basis and try things when they do not work for the students. While I also do my "own" research, the project I am specifically working on is, in fact, a collaboration that is currently coordinated by yours truly.

2. Of big concern were my mediocre grades in college, particularly in science courses, that were not consistent with my excellent letters of reference. The details of my defense would be irrelevant to the PO, but here they are: I went to an Ivy League school and took 3 to 4 science classes (with a couple of labs) each semester for my first two years. Neither my faculty nor my peer advisor suggested I take it easy to adjust to college, something that likely would have resulted in better science grades. But heck, I even got a B in a physiology class my first year when a bunch of other bio majors were taking introductory biology?! Whatever. I was a B student. At an Ivy League school. FYI to anyone out there giving advice to high school college applicants: Apparently a B average at a more prestigious school is not likely to be the same as an A average at a less prestigious school.

Oh. And did I mention that I graduated almost 10 years ago so all but a couple of those classes were taken 10 to 14 years ago? My references were scientists who have known me since college - mentored, trained, and taught me, and value the research I have done. I think they would know how well I am able to apply knowledge to research. Since receiving mediocre grades in college, I have taught English abroad, was a research tech getting lots of research experience and a publication, was a grad student with all As (or higher!) and finished in 5 1/2 school years while TAing the entire time and being involved in two other activities on campus and getting 3 publications and I just completely switched research areas and would really like a training grant. Thanks.

3. The third concern was just about the lack of specificity in my PI's training plan for me. I am not so concerned about that one.

Of course, these reviews have discouraged me because no one had any problems with my proposed research (aside from questions about who generated the preliminary data) but other details that could be easily explained. While I like writing papers and grants, reading publications and coming up with questions and experiments, and working at the bench, I question whether I want to do all of that all at once as a post-doc and junior faculty. It will be many years before I would likely have a group to do the brunt of the benchwork. I also do not want to write grants incessantly and not get funding. Because funding is so tight, even strong research proposals do not get funded.

Since I read through the feedback earlier in the day, I am once again wondering how I want to use my PhD, how much research I really want to do, how much teaching I really want to do, if running a lab is really what I want to do, if just teaching or just research would be a smarter route to take. So many questions to answer before I can figure out what I want to do when I grow up.