UC Grad Slam

The Grad Slam is a competition all UC’s compete in. PhD and masters students first go through the rounds in their school, and the winner from each school gathers for a finalist round. Here, there are a panel of judges and us viewers. The criteria they are looking for is how the speakers gauge their audience and also how they relay their research to a general audience. Every contestant had used an introduction tactic to grab the audience’s attention. Some started off with a question - Sean Huang, others like Christa Seidl and Deepa Rajan, invoked the use of other senses such as vision and hearing, and Brandon Tsai and Julia Mout used scenarios. As an audience member, I most enjoyed Brandon Tsai’s introduction. It was about a guy coming to the hospital and you diagnose him. The guy holler back, “It’s impossible!” Doesn’t sound too impressive, but that is because the fun relies on his execution. The intonations he used was what made it. Hearing the varying techniques gave me inspiration for my own writing. The research they did is also inspiring. Aneelman Brar is converting pollution into perfume, Muhammad Tawha Ibrahim built a projection to guide surgeons, Annette Hilton is gathering data on groundwater, Elissa Monterio is developing a screening system to better student health, Brandon Tsai is finding the one-size fits all of covid vaccine, Christa Seidl is preventing the extinction of Hawiian birds, Julia Mount has found a connection between grandparent’s lifestyle and grandchildren’s health complications, Sean Huang developed a technique to better learn a new language, Deepa Rajan raises the importance of habituation, and Madison Browne’s research brings humankind closer to understanding alzheimers. From their speech, I have learned that although numbers are great evidence, and is an easy way to gain reliability, if there is a way to talk about the research without it, then do so.

As mentioned before, they were all impressive, but the one I voted for is Aneelman Bar. Bar’s research is about tackling pollution by transforming carbon dioxide into formic acid. Although there are other labs out there trying to achieve the same outcome, Bar believes her lab is the only one able to do so without high cost, much equipment, and underground storage. Her method is to use a circular process, kind of like creating a little life cycle. It starts off by capturing carbon, freezing it, and then passing electricity through it to convert it into formic acid. Formic acid is used in various things such as perfume and cleaning supplies. This really intrigued me as someone who loves hearing about new innovations that could offset all the mess we have been making out of this planet, but does not have a mind for chemistry. Furthermore, she went over pollution and global climate change, something that has been preached over and over again, without sounding repetitive. And lastly, she turned what I would imagine to be a complicated and lengthy process into something simple and easy to understand.