On applying for the NSTGRO
I discuss in this post specifically about the NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity (NSTGRO) which I was awarded in 2022 and funded me for 4 years of my 5-year program. Previously, I was funded through the NSF Fellowship, and I won’t repeat the advice others have already so nicely and comprehensively put together in Ellen Considine’s blog post, Alex Lang’s website, and the MIT communications kit!
Among many (Hertz, Draper, NSF, SMART, Ford), the NSTGRO is maybe one of the lesser-known multi-year graduate fellowships. Partially since it considers only space technology applications, some fundamental research and out-of-field work aren’t as competitive. This is not to say they can’t be scoped in the right way to win this award; in fact, I think my research was more fundamental than applied.
Why the NSTGRO?
I switched from the NSF fellowship to the NSTGRO when I received it; it wasn’t a straightforward choice, but I appreciated the stability it offered since staying on the NSF would’ve necessitated finding extra funding eventually (NSF was 3/5 years, where as NSTGRO funds up to 4 -- also the remaining years of federal grants that I was eligible for). The biggest benefits of the NSTGRO are the 1) generous $11,000 travel and research fund and 2) the annual Visiting Technologist Experience. I have made thorough use of the former and attend 3-4 conferences every year (at least 1 international trip) and had the freedom to purchase textbooks, supplies, and research materials without prior approval. Having this amount of money to ‘spend as you see fit’ is incredibly rare in graduate school; I don’t know a single instance outside of the NSTGRO where this is afforded. The annual VTEs are required, and they have allowed me to form close collaborations with NASA labs and mentors. Significantly, they don’t restrict you to a single lab or even one that best fits your research; we are encouraged to collaborate across disciplines. I’ve used my most recent VTE to explore an adjacent area of interest for my post-doc; structured time to explore adjacent fields is also rare in a PhD.There are numerous reporting requirements attached to the grant; I submit 3 annual report packages and 3 quarterly reports (one is waived in lieu of the annual continuation package). I write about 25 pages of text for NASA yearly, beyond the budget tracking and managing intensified reporting redtape as of the last year. Everything in here has prepared me to be a better PI. It is also rare that, as a grad student, you are expected to manage reporting deadlines and write regular grant reports, work across the institution to put together requested packages, manage and track a budget, and constantly demonstrate the impact of your work to a client. I honestly see these as nano-tenure reporting, and as I want to stay in academia, I am grateful for the project management experience.
VIEWS MY OWN
I am, among many things, a PhD candidate at MIT AeroAstro. Motivated to always learn, categorize, and create frameworks for my experiences, I write and share reflections on my PhD journey in a collection called fieldnotes. Fieldnotes are detailed observations collected by anthropologists, sociologists, and ethnographers while situated in an environment of interest; the obsessive intensity to learn and grasp and make sense of phenomena during the collection of fieldnotes is the way that feels most reflective of the way I live life.