PLENARY SPEAKER |
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Our plenary speaker is a Mammalian Population and
Evolutionary Biology Professor at, and chair of, the Department
of Biology, University of
Memphis. Dr. Wollf investigates the evolution of mammalian behavioral
systems by examining male and female reproductive strategies. Particularly
in applying current theories of parental investment, mate selection,
dispersal, aggression and spacing patterns (territoriality), sexual
selection, sex ratio adjustment, reproductive competition, infanticide,
and kin selection to mammalian social organization. A main focus
of his research over the past 10 years has been to examine the role
of infanticide in the evolution of mammalian social systems. |
Plenary Address:
How to Achieve Successful Scientific Grantsmanship
in the 21st Century
Abstract:
Funding for research is highly competitive and
requires a thorough understanding of the peer review process, expectations
of funding agencies, the essential components of scientific discovery,
and a strategy for writing research proposals. I will review some
of these expectations with an emphasis on critical design of experimental
research. Some of the common pitfalls that young (and not-so-young)
researchers typically fall into when designing research are lack
of a conceptual or theoretical basis for formulating questions,
misunderstanding of hypothesis testing and the scientific method,
confounding variables and lack of controls in experimentation, incomplete
explanation of data analysis, and failure to draw appropriate inferences.
I will cover those areas of scientific endeavor that are particularly
pertinent to writing competitive grant proposals for government
funding agencies. The overall theme of the presentation is to make
young investigators better scientists so they can make a greater
contribution to public and scientific communities and to advancing
themselves professionally.
Back to speakers page |
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