Proposal Figures

Grant and research graphics reviewers can read at a glance

Proposal figures do a specific job under specific pressure. A reviewer is working through a stack of applications, and your figure gets a few seconds to establish what you are proposing and why it is worth funding. If it takes longer than that to parse, it has cost you rather than helped.

I spent 19 years at Purdue producing this work for NSF, DOE, DOD, and NIH submissions, alongside center-level proposals with 10 or more collaborating investigators. That means the constraints are already familiar: single-column widths, grayscale-safe palettes, type that survives at 8pt, and the reality that the figure gets finished three days before the deadline while the narrative is still moving.

The work here includes conceptual overviews, workflow and process diagrams, experimental schematics, data visualizations, and the summary figure that has to carry an entire aims page. Everything is delivered as vector art that scales without degrading, with an editable master file, so the next submission is a revision rather than a rebuild.

Solar Economy infographic with a stylized sun at center ringed by five icons: sun to chemicals, food, heat, wheels, and electricity
Natural gas counterpart to the solar economy infographic, with a blue starburst at center ringed by five icons: chemicals, food, heat, wheels, and electricity
Hydrogen-generation lab setup illustration: a three-necked flask with ammonia borane and ruthenium catalyst, thermocouples, a gas burette collecting hydrogen, and a heated water bath
Circular icdmHUB workflow diagram cycling analytical models, modeling tools, experimental data, experimental protocols, design tools, and data mining around a globe logo, feeding a workflow engine accessed through web browsers
Tree physiology illustration on a blue field, tracing carbon fixation in an oak leaf, water release as H2O, and the path of CO2 and ground water through the trunk into tree-ring cellulose, with nutrients rising from the soil
Technical diagram of composite fiber bending, labeling the fiber tows, matrix, shearing strain, and radius of curvature between two curved layers
Water cycle illustration showing precipitation falling from clouds onto a cornfield, a hillside tree, and a lake with a boat, transpiration and evaporation rising as yellow arrows, and the water table and ground water layered below the soil line
Comparison chart of six biomass-to-fuel conversion pathways, from gasification and fermentation through the H2Bioil and H2CAR processes, with yields in kilowatt-hours per square meter per year and gasoline-equivalent gallons per ton
Paired elevation drawings of an arched Purdue space simulation facility, with the sealed paneled exterior at left and a cutaway at right revealing a blue-lit lunar regolith test bed with two astronauts and a rover beneath a Purdue Proven, Space Ready banner
Process diagram routing biomass and carbon-free energy through a gasifier and liquid fuel reactor to produce liquid hydrocarbon transportation fuel, with recycle loops for carbon dioxide, syngas, and water
Circular EDAM workflow diagram in gray, cycling color-mapped simulation models through polymer crystallization, residual stress, creep, shape change, CAD, sliced CAD, and temperature, grouped under process simulation, performance simulation, and geometry, with an Additive 3D hexagon logo at center
Overview diagram of the H2Bioil process converting biomass, hydrogen, and carbon-free energy through fast-hydropyrolysis and hydrodeoxygenation into biofuel, with photographs of switchgrass, wind, nuclear, solar, and coal sources
Stacked bar chart of four energy production categories over time, overlaid with a line plot marking a steadily declining US market share
Circular diagram distributing annual solar photon energy into biomass, heat, electricity, hydrogen, and transportation, labeled in kilowatt-hours per square meter per year with a multi-input process at center
Schematic of a laboratory pyrolysis system with feed pump, pyrolysis reactor, cyclone, temperature control, condensers, filter, and bio-oil collection vessel
Gantt chart tracking twelve project tasks and subtasks month by month from August 2008 through June 2011, with gold bars marking each duration
Circular diagram of the economic, environmental, and energy benefits of the H2Bioil and H2Bioil-I processes, cycling through fossil fuel displacement, process energy efficiency, rural economic development, and near-term implementation
Two-part figure showing a formative assessment and evaluation flow above the SEIGERT program's organization chart, from principal investigator down to recruitment, internship, curriculum, and fellows committees
Flow chart tracing under-represented groups in US STEM programs through engagement, recruitment, and retention, with campus resources listed at left and outreach actions at right
Yellow triangle diagram organizing twelve dissertation topics, from solar economy and sun-to-fuels at the apex down to quantum dots, quantum wires, grain growth, and climate along the base
Comparison diagram contrasting siloed engineering and science disciplines with the SEIGERT program's radial sun of collaborating departments, faculty, national laboratories, and industry partners
Two-panel figure pairing the solar economy sun infographic with a radial conversion map highlighting a new method that links biomass, hydrogen, and liquid fuel production
Two-panel figure pairing the solar economy sun infographic with a pentagon linking solar energy to photovoltaics, thermal energy, liquid fuels, chemicals, and crops and biomass
Process flow diagram of the H2Bioil fast-hydropyrolysis and HDO process, routing biomass through a dryer, hydropyrolysis reactor, cyclones, combustor, temperature adjustment, catalytic HDO unit, and gas-liquid separator and condensor