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Karl Zelik

@KarlZelik

Oct 14

Early career researchers often stress out when they talk to more senior faculty about how many grant proposals they submit.

Don't compare. Focus on your writing process. Outcomes will follow.

Here are 5 proven tricks senior faculty use to submit more high-quality proposals:🧵

1. Resubmitting

• Revise/resubmit an unfunded proposal
• This takes much less time than writing a new application

This is easier to do (and comes naturally) as you get further into your career.

2. Repurposing

• Take a similar core idea and apply it to a new population or context
• Or you can sometimes submit the same proposal to multiple agencies (check w/ program officers first; you just can't accept two grants for the same work)

This helps get more shots on goal.

Read 7 tweets

Karl Zelik

@KarlZelik

Oct 12

I wish I learned this tip earlier in my career:

👉🏽 If you do R&D on wearable or assistive tech, wear/use prototypes regularly in your daily life. It helps empathize with end users. And improves your ability to design and test for usability & practicality.

Here's why (brief 🧵)

1. It builds your intuition.

In retrospect, this tip seems obvious. But most researchers & developers don't do it. It took me >10 years of biomedical R&D to realize it.

Once I did, it transformed how I evaluate and develop new #exoskeletons, #prosthetics, #bionics & #wearables

2. It provides clarity.

You'll notice design constraints you never knew existed. You'll think more deeply about user experience. And you'll create better lab and field evaluations more quickly.

It helps preempt fatal flaws before you start any serious design or testing work.

Read 4 tweets

Karl Zelik

@KarlZelik

Oct 10

💡 Tip for early career researchers: Sometimes you need to TELL, not ASK.

❌ Instead of asking your organization or boss: "How do I do X (procedure)"

✅ For truly important matters, tell them: "Y (goal) is what I'm striving to accomplish" or "Y is what I need to be successful."

PhD student example:

❌ "How do I find an industry internship?"

✅ "I really need to get some industry experience during graduate school to set me up for success in what I want to do next in my career."

PI example:

❌ "How do I get invited to participate on a grant review panel?"

✅ "It's really important for me to serve on a grant review panel soon to help me improve the competitiveness of my proposals."

Read 4 tweets

Karl Zelik

@KarlZelik

Oct 1

@jointbme

This week, I enjoyed visiting the vibrant, creative, & interdisciplinary researchers in @jointbme @CLEAR_NCSU_UNC.

I gave a seminar on lessons from translational #biomechanics R&D.

I shared 6 actionable tips to improve iterative, user-centric development in academic labs: 🧵

@jointbme

@jointbme @CLEAR_NCSU_UNC 1. Spend more time with users

• Get to know users deeply
• Don't focus conversations on your research/tech
• Give time for users to discuss their life & pain points

Use info to build user stories that complement technical requirements, & help prioritize studies or features

@jointbme

@jointbme @CLEAR_NCSU_UNC 2. Perform early user testing

• Most academics involve users too late
• People often feel they need a good prototype
• But this is a missed opportunity

There are lots of ways to test with and learn from users before you have a complete prototype or formal study protocol.

Read 8 tweets

Karl Zelik

@KarlZelik

Aug 29

Want to improve your scientific presentations?

Every great seminar and conference speaker I've seen in my 15 years as an academic researcher did these 10 things. These can 10x your research visibility and impact. And this will unleash new opportunities. 🔥🚀

Let's dive in:

1. Start with something engaging

• Funny story
• Personal anecdote
• Interesting statistic (that the audience doesn't know)

The first thing you say determines whether the audience will be leaning in to listen or picking up their phone to check email. Act accordingly #SciComm

2. Explain the significance

• What's the broader impact on your field?
• What's the future impact on society?
• Why should anyone care?

It doesn't matter if you're presenting to experts in your field or a broad audience. Succinctly and clearly explain why your work matters.

Read 14 tweets

Karl Zelik

@KarlZelik

Jan 6, 2021

Occupational #wearables for monitoring low back load have potential to improve ergonomic assessments & enable personalized, continuous monitoring of overexertion injury risk in the workplace.
#biomechanics #ergonomics

Encouraged by what we discovered:
mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/2…

1/

We wanted to know: if we can only use a small number of wearable sensors to monitor low back loading, then which sensors should we use, where should we place them, what type of algorithm should we employ, & how accurately can we monitor back loading during material handling?

2/

To address this we synchronously collected data from the #biomechanics lab & from #wearables to analyze 10 individuals each performing 400 different material handling tasks. We explored dozens of candidate solutions that used IMUs on various body locations & pressure insoles.

3/

Read 12 tweets

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