Announcements

Three Faculty Members Named Winners of Nutshell Talks March 4

Sixteen courageous and innovative faculty members stepped into the spotlight at the Moss Arts Center March 4, presenting their research to a lively public audience and a panel of discerning judges, including three 7th graders. With just 90 seconds each to explain their groundbreaking research, all 16 contestants dazzled the crowd during this fast-paced, fun, and informative showcase of the innovative work happening right here at Virginia Tech. 

    We challenged the judges to select three of the speakers to receive $1,000 each in professional development funding. The winners were

1. Abhijit Sarkar, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, Seeing the Invisible: The Next Frontier in Remote Health Monitoring 
2. Bo Zhang, Plant and Environmental Science, Breeding a Better Bean: How My Soybeans Shape Your Food
3. Pipiet Larasatie, Sustainable Biomaterials, The Rise of Wooden Skyscrapers!

    But wait, there’s more! You have the power to crown the fourth winner. The talks are now posted on the Center for Communicating Science YouTube page, and the video with the highest number of views during the month after the event earns its presenter the coveted Audience Favorite award.  The direct links to each talk can be found below.  Please also check out the event's coverage in this VT News video.

    The Faculty Nutshell Talks is brought to you by the Center for Communicating Science and funded by the Office of Research and Innovation and by Faculty Affairs. Presenter positions are open to all Virginia Tech faculty, and spots are filled as registration forms are received.  

    With presentations on research from seven of Virginia Tech’s colleges, audience members learned about feeding the world, using math to do biology, animals moving in a changing world, building wooden skyscrapers, senses and storytelling, floor vibrations, security and privacy, what it means to follow a leader, living your best life, and much more, all in just over an hour.

    A 4-hour preparatory workshop for all participants was held January 31. Facilitated by Center for Communicating Science faculty Patty Raun, Carrie Kroehler, and Jon Catherwood-Ginn, the workshop helped researchers build their communication skills, find the story in their research, and distill their work into 90 seconds. As with all the center’s work, the focus was on helping speakers communicate personally, directly, spontaneously, responsively, and with emotional vividness.  

    The judges for this year's event included

• Minal Afridi, 7th grader, Blacksburg Middle School

• Musa Afridi, 7th grader, Blacksburg Middle School

• Debbie Day,  Associate Vice President for Presidential Priorities, Alumni Relations, Virginia Tech

• John Robert Henderson, 7th grader, Dalton Intermediate School  

• Iris Jenkins, Director of the Research Integrity and Consultation Program, Virginia Tech

• Barbara Lockee, Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, Virginia Tech

• SSgt. Eileen Perez, Air Force ROTC, Virginia Tech

• Karen Roberto, University Distinguished Professor; Executive Director of the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment, Virginia Tech

• Jeffrey Schwaner, Executive Editor of Cardinal News

    Faculty presenters included: 

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences:

Sally Entrekin, Entomology, Mayflies in Space Tell Us a Lot About the Health of Streams, Rivers, and Wetlands

Ashley Jernigan, School of Plant and Environmental Science,  Harnessing the Power of Healthy Soils to Grow Healthy People

Eric Kaufman, Agricultural, Leadership, and Community Education, Got Followership? Rethinking Leadership from the Other Side

Bo Zhang, School of Plant and Environmental Science, Breeding a Better Bean: How My Soybeans Shape Your Food

College of Architecture, Arts, and Design:

Meaghan Dee, School of Visual Arts, More than Pretty: Why Design Must Have Meaning

Mehdi Setareh, School of Architecture, Controlling Excessive Vibrations of Building Floors

Greg Tew, School of Architecture, Are We Living Our Best Life?

College of Engineering:

Bo Ji, Computer Science, Securing the Future of Mixed Reality

Pranav Khandelwal, Mechanical Engineering, Understanding Animal Movement in a Changing World, from Flying Lizards to Zebras

Abhijit Sarkar, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, Seeing the Invisible: The Next Frontier in Remote Health Monitoring

College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences:

Bonnie Zare, Sociology; Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, If You Don't Know India, You Don't Know Humanity

College of Natural Resources and Environment:

Pipiet Larasatie, Sustainable Biomaterials, The Rise of Wooden Skyscrapers!

College of Science:

Keoni Castellano, Mathematics, Quantifying Contagion: The Mathematics of Infectious Disease Spread

Jing Chen, Biological Sciences, When Biology Meets Math: Using a Computer to Dissect Cells

Lavinia Carmen Uscatescu, Psychology, Beauty Is in the Brain of the Beholder

Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine:

Clayton Caswell, Biomedical Science and Pathobiology, One Bug’s Journey from Cow to Man: How Bacteria Use a Special Chemical to “Call” Each Other and Cause Disease

    Participants were provided with a simple set of rules: 

• Have fun with it!  

• Your presentation must be 90 seconds maximum. Presentations longer than 90 seconds will be disqualified. 

• No PowerPoint slides or additional electronic media (e.g., sound or video files) are permitted. One prop or visual aid is permitted (e.g., a piece of lab equipment or large photograph).  

• You must speak in prose! No songs, poems, raps, etc.  

• The judges' decision is final.  

    They were also given the criteria used by the judges in selecting five winners:

• Did the presenter make a connection with the audience? 

• Did the presenter communicate the importance of the research? 

• Was the research accessible to a non-specialist? 

• Did the presenter capture and keep their audience's attention? 

• Did the presenter convey enthusiasm or other emotion related to the research? 

• Did the presenter convey a sense of confidence? 

• Did the presentation make the audience want to know more? 

When: Tuesday, March 4, at 5:30 p.m. 

Where: Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, Moss Arts Center, Virginia Tech 

Congratulations to all our Faculty presenters! It was an amazing evening of celebrating science.

For more news about the Center for Communicating Science, see our newsletter page, our VTX (News and Stories from Virginia Tech) page, and the "Other News and Media" section of our News page.