Participation Entry

• Students who successfully complete the following will be eligible to receive a $50 gift card:
  • attend a Small Group Coaching Session and
  • submit a 3-minute video presentation of their research
  • submit a PowerPoint presentation using up to 3 slides

Eligibility

• The challenge is open to all currently registered and enrolled UCLA Master’s and doctoral graduate students.
• Students must be registered and enrolled during Winter Quarter 2021 and be in good academic standing in order to participate in Grad Slam and to be eligible to receive any participation gifts.
• Students on an official leave of absence, paying a filing fee, or with lapsed status in Winter 2021 are not eligible to compete.
• Students are only allowed to enter the challenge individually. Joint presentations with other students are not permitted.
• Students must meet the guiding principles of the Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Sponsored Research.
• Students who competed in previous Grad Slams are eligible to enter the 2021 challenge if they DID NOT win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. The Audience Choice winner IS eligible to participate in Grad Slam again. However, if that person also placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd, they are not eligible.

5 Reasons to Sign Up View Infographic

Who Participated in 2020? View the 2020 UCLA Grad Slam Participation – Infographic

Need a little inspiration? Watch these videos of the 2020 finals:

• Caitlin Aamodt, Neuroscience – How Songbirds can Help Us Find New Treatments for Autism
• Wadie Chalgham, Mechanical Engineering – Smart Pipeline Leak Detection and Response System
• An-Chieh Feng, Molecular Biology / Immunity, Microbes, and Molecular Pathogenesis – 99% Useless?
• Lucia Ichino, Molecular Biology – Unlocking the DNA
• Meng-Wei Ko, Oral Biology and Medicine – Natural Killer Cells: Triumph Over Cancer
• Cassandra Meyer, Neuroscience – Taming the Neurodegenerative Monster in Multiple Sclerosis
• Kanav Saraf, Bioengineering – Helping your Doctor Catch Silent Heart Disease
• Karthik Sarma, Bioengineering – Federated Learning for Medical Imaging
• David Shia, Molecular Biology – Outmaneuvering Drug-Resistant Cancer: A Game of Chess
• Gil Torten, Neuroscience – Preventing Blindness on a Cellular Level

Registration is now open for the 2021 UCLA Grad Slam Challenge!

 Interested in participating in the 2021 UCLA Grad Slam Challenge? Register here.

The deadline to register has been EXTENDED to
Tuesday, March 23, 2021, at 11:59 pm PST.

Need more convincing to enter the competition?
Read the Grad Slam stories of past competitors.

Marissa Stevens
1st Place – 2018 Grad Slam
Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
Social Identity from Ancient Egypt to Modern Times

“With just three minutes, Grad Slam challenged me to delve into the core of my academic interests and present a distillation of my research in a way that was relatable to a wide audience.”

Xiaofei Lin
Biochemistry
Decrypting The Immune System

“Grad Slam was a great experience that not only helped me build science communication skills, but also connected me with other incredible student researchers outside my field who remain fantastic friends today.”

Samantha Morse
English
A Dreadful History

“Grad Slam gave me the skills and confidence to quickly share my research with anyone. This ability has especially come in handy at conferences when I’m introducing myself to other scholars and want to make a meaningful impression.”

Allyson Terry
Pharmacology
Securing The Health Of Organ Transplant Recipients

“Participating in both the Grad Slam preparation workshops and the competition not only opened my eyes to all of the interesting research outside of my field that is being done across the UCLA campus, but improved the way I think about, organize, present, and receive feedback about my own presentations. Grad Slam definitely helped me improve how I communicate my research to people both inside and outside of my field. If you will have to talk about your research at some point in your career (which I’m sure you will), I highly recommend participating in Grad Slam!”

Cindy Lee
Education
English Learners and Oral Language Anxiety: An Approach Using Lego Storystarter

“I’ve always had a fear of public speaking, and get anxious and self-conscious just from standing in front of a room full of people. Despite this, I learned that it’s such an important skill to succeed in graduate school, and in life. When I saw the Grad Slam flyer, I thought to myself, “Hey! This couldn’t be that bad, since it has to be under 3-minutes!” Then I consulted with my academic advisor, who encouraged me to enter the competition. She believed that it would be interesting given that my research centers on children who are less comfortable speaking. One of the greatest things about Grad Slam is that they offered free workshops on presentation skills, visual designs, and small group coaching, which are wonderful resources not only for the competition, but also for future conferences and presentations! It was such a valuable experience and I look forward to bragging about it to my (future-if-any) grandkids.”

Nicholas Matiasz
Bioengineering
Building the Brain of a Robot Scientist

“I study medical informatics because, as an engineer, I value efficiency, and improving efficiency in medicine is sure to reduce suffering. To accelerate scientific discovery, I’m designing software that can help researchers to find all the valid interpretations of their evidence and to design experiments that would be most informative.I competed in Grad Slam because my work is only as good as my ability to communicate it. This competition helps you to distill your message for a general audience and to deliver that message with poise. Change happens when ideas spread, and that always requires a story—even in technical fields like mine. Grad Slam helped me to hone my story.”

Taylor Corcoran
Anderson School of Management
HIV vs Hypertension: Optimizing Drug Approvals

“I chose to participate in Grad Slam after a stressful conference presentation in which I presented an early version of my grad slam research to a small room of professors and students. I was petrified and shaking throughout my entire talk, and I couldn’t wait to finish the presentation. Even though I was passionate about the work I was doing, I wasn’t able to convey it to others because of how nervous I was. I knew that I needed to overcome my fear of public speaking, which is why I chose to compete in Grad Slam — and it worked! By the time I reached the finals, I was actually excited to get on stage.”

Gary Yeung
Electrical Engineering
Making Electronic Personal Assistants Listen to Children

“Scientific researchers like myself spend much of their time trying to understand problems. This is accompanied by a disconnect from society. While we might pat ourselves on the back for finding an interesting solution, we often ignore what the solution could imply for humanity. The reality is that science without an application is useless, and technology for the mere purpose of innovation is sometimes disastrous. Science can only make a meaningful impact if it is properly understood by the public. I entered the Grad Slam competition as it aligns with my beliefs that effective education and communication of science shapes research just as much as the science itself. I encourage others to participate in Grad Slam to reflect on how their research will affect society.”

UCLA’s Grad Slam challenges graduate students to present a compelling presentation of their research in just 3 minutes using language appropriate for a non-specialist audience.

• In cases of collaborative research, the presenter’s contribution to the project must be salient and clearly specified.
• We strongly encourage Humanities and Social Sciences students to enter the challenge.

Expected Participation

Once registered in the Grad Slam challenge, you must complete the following to be eligible to receive a $50 Amazon gift card.

1. Attend one Small Group Coaching Session.
2. Submit a 3 minute video presentation of your research.
3. Slides are optional. If you are submitting a PowerPoint presentation, the limit is up to 3 slides. If you choose NOT to use slides, please indicate in your registration form.

*The Grad Slam prep workshops are optional and open to all graduate students.
*Last minute cancellations are strongly discouraged. Please inform the Grad Slam team (gdevents@grad.ucla.edu) if you no longer wish to participate in the Challenge.

Presentations/Slides – GUIDELINES & LIMITATIONS

Slides
1. Presenters are limited to a maximum of three (3) PowerPoint slides. No other formats (Prezi, PDFs, etc.) are acceptable.
2. Slides are optional. If you choose NOT to use slides, please indicate in your registration form so we can make a note of it.
3. Please include a plain white fourth slide that includes 1) your presentation title, 2) your name, and 3) your area of study. We will import this information on to a standard Grad Slam cover slide for you and put at the front of your presentation.
4. Use the 16:9 aspect ratio slide size for your presentation.
5. Embedded audio and/or video clips (including but not limited to .gif, .avi, .mp4, .mp3, and .wmv file types) are not permitted unless they are deemed indispensable to the communication of the research topic.
6. No PowerPoint animation effects are allowed (use of PowerPoint animation tab not allowed).
7. Slides must be created by the student and not generated by a professional. Use of PowerPoint templates is allowed.
8. You will be required to upload your video AND PowerPoint presentations to a designated site. Specific upload instructions will be sent to each student presenter.
9. Props are allowed.
10. Use common fonts like Arial, Calibri, Tahoma, Verdana, etc. to avoid any changes in your slides when opened on another computer.

Background and lighting
1. Please record yourself in a natural, uncluttered, quiet, and well-lit area (i.e., at home or office, not using a virtual background). Natural light sources illuminating your face from front and sides is ideal.
2. Filming while facing an uncovered window during the day is usually best.
3. Avoid bright lighting or windows behind you.

Recording your video
1. Please record your presentation in 1080p/HD. Also, use landscape (horizontally) rather than portrait mode.
2. Please make sure that your audio is clear and that there are no echoes.
3. Record from a straightforward angle, instead of the camera looking up or looking down, with the entire face up to chest-level within the frame.
4. Do not visually incorporate your PowerPoint slide into your video by placing it in the background or by sharing your screen. PowerPoint slides must be submitted separately. However, please include in your presentation a verbal cue to signal that you are referring to the first, second or third slide.
5. Do not edit your videos or add special effects.

Additional Tips

• Grad Slam is about effective COMMUNICATION– engaging your audience in key aspect of your research that excite you, that tell the best story to people outside of your field.
• Think about what sets your research apart from what has already been done already. What makes your work unique and valuable to your field?
• Think about commonplace references you can make to relate to your audience and draw them into your subject. Humor is often a good tool, as are rhetorical questions.
• The images you use on your slides should complement or illustrate what you are communicating verbally. Make sure they are relevant to your message.
• Do not fill your slides with data, charts, or graphs that require a lot of explanation.
• Do not fill your slides with so much content that the audience will be spending time trying to it all figure out what, rather than listening to what you are saying.
• Stay away from acronyms unless they are well-known or you can quickly explain them. Same with jargon and complex terms. You will need to briefly define them.
• Practice, practice, practice so you know all of your content by heart. Try recording yourself so you can see what others are seeing when you are presenting.
• Slow down and relax. Don’t speak too fast and mind your tempo and cadence. Clarity and being comfortable with your content is key.
• Practice presenting in front of your roommate, friends or family members — people are not greatly familiar with your topic/research. They are great sounding boards.
• Have fun with this! Your work is valuable and YOU are the expert. You have a lot to teach the rest of us and we’re here to listen.