Optimizing NSF I-Corps Program Engagement

As part of my role at the Auster Center for Applied Innovation and Research, I led a Lean Six Sigma project aimed at increasing engagement with the NSF I-Corps program at Tufts University. The core problem was simple but impactful: most students, PhD candidates, and postdocs had never heard of I-Corps, creating a massive awareness gap that prevented talented researchers from accessing federal innovation funding.

Using the full DMAIC framework, I helped define the problem through voice-of-customer research, designed a 2³ full factorial Design of Experiments (DOE) testing 8 combinations of delivery method, message framing, and source persona to identify what drove awareness most effectively. I built DPMO baseline metrics — identifying roughly 255,000 awareness failures per million messaging opportunities — and conducted root cause analysis via a fishbone diagram spanning communication gaps, faculty involvement, and application complexity. On the improvement side, I developed a multi-channel outreach strategy across Canvas, Slack, and listservs, simplified the HubSpot application flow, and built a risk response matrix. The control phase established a sustainable tracking system to monitor ongoing program engagement, directly contributing to the 90% program completion rate I drove during my time at the Auster Center.