How do our minds turn sounds into words? Do healthy forests make healthy humans? What’s the role of the cerebellum in autism?
These questions and many more will be explored at UC’s upcoming Grad Slam competition, where graduate students compete to explain their complex, cutting-edge research in just 3 minutes flat.
Livestreamed at 10:30 a.m. Friday, May 3, the event provides a glimpse into the incredible breadth of graduate research happening across the 10-campus University of California system.
Graduate students spend months preparing to explain their research in terms that will amaze and enlighten a general audience — and do it in no more than 180 seconds. Each of this year’s 10 contestants has already won their campus Grad Slam competition and is now vying for systemwide bragging rights and a share of $14,000 in prize money at the systemwide finale.
Compressing years of meticulous work into a 3-minute explainer isn’t just a challenge for challenge’s sake — it’s a way for students to get experience sharing the value of their research with a general audience.
“Grad Slam gives the public a taste of the incredible world-changing research happening across the University of California,” said Pamela D. Jennings, UC’s associate vice provost for Graduate Studies. “But beyond being a fun and informative showcase of UC research by talented graduate students, the Grad Slam competition helps our students improve communication skills in ways that are valuable to all professional employment sectors and critical to garnering research funding and public support for their work.”
Contestants have put in months of preparation and training and won out against dozens of competitors on their own campuses to make it into the finals, which will be livestreamed from the LinkedIn headquarters in San Francisco. Students who take part in Grad Slam typically have had access to campus-based preparation opportunities, such as public speaking workshops or even one-on-one coaching, to prepare their talks.
Last year’s third-place winner, Elissa Monteiro of UC Riverside, reflected on the journey: “The UC Riverside Grad Slam was such a supportive, iterative process — we gave each other high fives and feedback. It was a really good group of students supporting each other, giving each other thumbs up, it was a great experience.”
For graduate students in STEM and public health fields, the opportunity to hone science communication skills is especially important. “I’ve always been a big proponent of popularized medicine,” said last-year’s first-place winner Brandon Tsai, whose research pointed to a new approach to Covid-19 vaccines. “There’s been a lot of damage between the relationship of the public and their perceptions of vaccines and the researchers who work on the vaccines. Through popularizing medical research, we can try to repair that relationship, in hopes that by describing the science, more people are open to the idea of vaccines and medicine.”
Now in its ninth year, the Grad Slam championship will be emceed by UC President Michael V. Drake, M.D. A panel of judges representing industry, media and higher education has the tough task of choosing the top three winners. In addition, attendees and livestream viewers will select the winner of the People’s Choice award.
The first-place contestant takes home the Grad Slam trophy — affectionately known as the Slammy — and shares the $14,000 prize money with the runners-up.
Tune in to watch the livestream on Friday, May 3 at 10:30 a.m. and cast your vote for audience favorite.
