Grad Slam Round 7 winner Peter Mage. Credit: Patricia MarroquinGrad Slam Preliminary Round 7 on Wednesday afternoon in the Mary Cheadle Room of Davidson Library included slimy snails and rich kelp forests, wi-fi devices and quantum computers, unions and unicorns.
Nine grad student contestants presented their three-minute talks in Round 7 of the Grad Slam, part of Graduate Division’s Graduate Student Showcase events that are designed to highlight and celebrate the remarkable contributions and achievements of our university’s grad students.
The talks were judged on several criteria: clear and compelling nature of the presentations; perceived impact on an academic field or on society; and how well the talks were geared for general audiences. In addition, any contestants who exceeded the three-minute limit had points deducted from their scores.
Ana Garcia of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology demonstrated the magical nature of snails in her talk about snail parasites and the division of labor. Yingjie Hu of Geography discussed citation maps and visualizing the spread of scientific ideas through space and time. Next the audience heard from Daniel Iland of Computer Science how crowd-sourced data collection using smartphones can assist in disasters such as those in Haiti, Japan, and Mexico.
Daniel Iland discussed emergency communication using wi-fi devices. Credit: Patricia MarroquinMaterials grad student Peter Mage discussed the future of personalized medicine as enabled by new technologies involving biosensing and drug delivery. He shared his group’s research on real-time detection and control of drugs in the body, and how this research could revolutionize treatment strategies for cancer, acute injuries, and chronic conditions such as diabetes.
Sophia McCabe from History of Art & Architecture asked the question: What does a unicorn horn, a sixteenth-century watercolor of a rabbit, a sixteenth-century clock, and the Mars Rover have in common? Her answer: Each one facilitates learning and the production of knowledge. She discussed the best way to learn.
Physics grad student Eugeniu Plamadeala told the audience why quantum computing is so cool. History grad student Samir Sonti shared statistics that showed that as union membership drops, wealth inequality increases. He argued that unions matter now more than ever. Daniel Sheinson of Statistics and Applied Probability talked about how disease epidemics could be predicted using particle filtering.
Finally, Marine Science grad student Tom Bell discussed the spatial and temporal variability of kelp forests in the northeast Pacific and how kelp changes with environmental conditions.
While the judges deliberated elsewhere, the audience had a chance to ask questions of the Round 7 participants. When they returned, the three top finishers were announced: Ana Garcia, Peter Mage, and Tom Bell. They each received $50 gift cards for the UCen bookstore.
The winner of Round 7 is Peter Mage. He will go on to compete against Bob Lansdorp (Round 1 winner), Jasmin Llamas (Round 2), Torrey Trust (Round 3), Britney Pennington (Round 4), Cyrus Dreyer (Round 5), Briana Simmons (Round 6), and the two remaining preliminary round winners on Friday, April 19, in the Grad Slam Finals.
See the full Grad Slam schedule for other events this week, which include a Performance Showcase, tours of the Experimental Visualization Lab, a Graduate Student Picnic, and a final reception.
Round 7 competitors in the Grad Slam. Credit: Patricia Marroquin