Dr. Joseph D. Ferrara

The stimulus package brought forth by President Obama has made for exciting times at NIH and other federal funding organizations. While it may be easier than ever before to get funding in the life sciences you still need to make sure your grant proposal meets the requirements of the funding agency. Your proposal must also provide the appropriate background information for your particular research field, your contribution to that field , a detailed discussion of your proposal's broader impact, and why your proposal is worthy of funding based on purely intellectual merit. We will review both general tip and tricks for all proposals as well as some specific tips and tricks for proposals to NIH.

Dr. Ferrara received his B.S. in Chemistry from Case Institute of Technology in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 1988. Dr. Ferrara joined Molecular Structure Corporation in 1988. Molecular Structure Corporation was purchased by Rigaku in 1996 and became Rigaku Americas Corporation in 2005. Dr. Ferrara is presently Chief Science Officer of RAC. Dr. Ferrara also holds an appointment as Deputy Director, X-ray Research Laboratory with Rigaku in Japan and is a member of the board of directors for Rigaku Innovative Technologies.

In the area of applied research, Dr. Ferrara directs the development of CCD detectors for the Rigaku group and is directly involved in the development of X-ray generators, optics, goniometers and software. In the area of basic research, Dr. Ferrara is working on the use of chromium radiation for extracting the anomalous scattering signal from sulfur and other weak scatterers for routine phasing of macromolecular diffraction data.