When the U.S. Department of Education needed a principal investigator for a $750,000 STEM grant, they chose Martin Pieters. When NSF's MRSEC program selected research educators twice — in 2015 and again in 2022 — Pieters was among the four chosen each cycle. This is who writes your application.
You are not hiring a grant consultant. You are engaging a principal investigator with a documented federal research trajectory.
Most grant writers list credentials. We tell you what each one means — what it required, who it impressed, and why it positions your application to win. Here is the arc that backs every application we write.
When the Department of Education announced its 2012 MSEIP cohort, 14 institutions were selected nationally — announced by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Kennedy-King College at City Colleges of Chicago was one of them, with Martin Pieters as the PI who authored and submitted the winning application. The grant delivered $250,000 per year for three years and launched a ten-year research relationship with Northwestern University that would extend through 2022.
One of four educators selected for Northwestern's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center RET program. Pieters conducted original computational chemistry research under the Broadbelt Group — kinetic modeling of oil paint aging using Arrhenius equations, Automated Network Generation systems, and ordinary differential equations. Co-authored with Lindsay Oakley (Northwestern Dept. of Materials Science & Engineering). Presented August 13, 2015. Funded by NSF and MRSEC.
When the American Heart Association needed a curriculum architect for their AI research grant, they chose Martin Pieters — alongside researchers from King's College London and Quest University. Hosted by Dr. Keigo Kawaji, tied to AHA Grant AHA 19AIREA34450209. Pieters co-designed AI curriculum and served as Machine Learning Instructor at the IIT Summer Program (July 28, 2019), alongside faculty from Stanford, Northwestern, UChicago, and King's College London.
Kawaji, Goes, Pieters et al. — IIT · UChicago · King's College London · Quest University. Presented at ISMRM Sedona 2019. Equal contribution status — not acknowledgment. This is the distinction that separates participants from co-investigators. Funded by AHA Grant #AIREA34450209 and NIH K25 HL141634.
Seven years after the first selection, Pieters was chosen again — one of four educators selected for Northwestern's MRSEC RET program. AI and deep learning research for materials science under Dr. Wei Chen, with Ford Motor Company collaboration. This second selection confirms a documented, seven-year research relationship with Northwestern MRSEC (2015–2022) — not a one-time credential, but a sustained research identity. Presented August 11, 2022.
Selected for the 2025–2026 Amazon-HBCU AI/ML Educator Fellowship — a program connecting historically Black college and university-affiliated educators to Amazon's machine learning infrastructure and research networks. Part of the same intellectual lineage as Howard University and Tuskegee University. DJMP's work belongs to the tradition of institutions founded to serve communities the mainstream excluded.
Recognized at the Tuskegee University AWS Machine Learning University Symposium as Faculty Fellow — the only educator from City Colleges of Chicago in the cohort. This credential does not travel in straight lines from community college teaching to AWS faculty designation. It travels through 14 years of documented federal research, two Northwestern selections, and a live AI system in production serving Chicago's most underserved communities.
Building TCAF — the Trustworthy Civic AI Framework — the first empirically grounded, integrated design science framework for agentic AI in high-stakes civic environments. Four pillars: Secure by Architecture · Ethical by Design · Equitable by Intent · Scalable by Design. PathwayAI — a live system connecting Bronzeville residents to ten federal workforce databases via autonomous AI agents — is the proof-of-concept artifact from which TCAF is derived. No other grant writer in the country can point to a running production system as their dissertation's proof of concept.
Two HBCU-connected AI practitioners — one who built the framework, one who governs it — sitting at the same governance table building AI infrastructure for the communities those institutions were founded to serve.
Every tier is written by Martin Pieters — principal investigator on a $750,000 federal grant, twice-selected NSF MRSEC Research Fellow, and PhD candidate in AI. We write with you, not for a template.
You've written a draft. We read it the way a program officer reads it — and tell you exactly what needs to change before you submit.
We research the funder, map DJMP's — or your organization's — credentials to their priorities, and write the complete narrative. You review, approve, and submit.
For organizations ready to run multiple applications simultaneously. We sequence the submissions, reuse approved narrative blocks strategically, and manage the full pipeline.
For foundations, workforce boards, or nonprofits that need a continuous grant writing partner — not a one-time vendor. Retainer scope is custom-negotiated based on volume and cadence.
Workforce boards, foundations, and consultants: we offer white-label grant writing at custom pricing. If your clients need federal, state, or foundation grant support and you want a PI-credentialed writer behind the work without using your own capacity — start that conversation below.
We respond to every inquiry. If you have an upcoming deadline, say so — we triage by urgency and will tell you within 24 hours whether we can take the work.
Tell us the grant, the deadline, and where you are in the process. The more context, the better.
We'll confirm whether this is a grant we can take, the appropriate tier, and next steps. No obligation.
30 minutes. We align on the narrative strategy before a word is written. We research, you approve.
Two revision rounds included in all tiers above Review. You submit when you're confident.