Big ideas and bold voices: Inside a standout night at the Faculty Nutshell Talks

A lineup of compelling speakers and an energetic audience set the stage for ideas and exchange at the 2026 Faculty Nutshell Talks, held March 5 at Virginia Tech's Center for the Arts. Built around a simple challenge — sharing research in just 90 seconds, with no slides or jargon — Virginia Tech faculty turned complex scholarship into vivid, accessible stories that bridged disciplines and connected research with communities.

    "It’s the essence of why we do the things that we do,” said Sally Dickinson, an applied animal behavioralist who presented her research on working canine behavior and training at this year’s Talks. “It brings back into focus the why behind all of the amazing stuff that I could talk about for hours and hours. That's important for anybody who's involved in research or academia at any level, to refocus that process every once in a while.”

    Audiences journeyed from cooking mini planets to fish that “smoke two packs a day,” from bubble-based cancer treatments to tackling "forever chemicals." Each talk offered a distinct perspective and invited an engaged audience into emerging areas of research and innovation.

    Our panel of judges represented both campus and community:

• Darryl Campbell, Blacksburg Town Council member
• Robert Jenkins, local 7th grader
• Lu Liu, Dean, College of Architecture, Arts, and Design, Virginia Tech
• Andrea Muscatello, Director, Blacksburg Interfaith Food Pantry
• Karen Roberto, University Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment, Virginia Tech
• Maire Schenk, local 7th grader
• Steven White, University Illustrator ("The Doodler"), Virginia Tech

    Together, the judges and audience had the challenging task of choosing just three talks to receive awards. While these honors highlight exceptional presentations, the success of the evening lies in the collective strength of all the talks. Congratulations to each of our participants, and to our winners! Selected by our panel of judges:

Steve Matuszak, Department of Marketing, “The #1 fear” 

Stella Schons, Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, “Paying for forest conservation”

and by the audience, voting immediately following the talks:

Sally Dickinson, School of Animal Sciences, “The dogs who find us: Preparing partners, not tools" 

    And the story isn’t over yet. The talks are now live on the Center for Communicating Science’s YouTube channel as part of the Most-Watched Video Award competition. Over a four-week period, we encourage viewers to watch, share, and support the talks that resonate most. The talk with the highest number of views by 9 a.m. April 21 will earn the fourth and final award. Links to each video can be found in the list below. 

    This year’s presenters included

• Nasim Akhtar, Fralin Life Sciences Institute, “Finding cancer early — when we still have choices”
• Jonathan Bluey, Department of Building Construction, “I see the light.”
• Saptarshi Chatterjee, Department of Biological Sciences, “Designing digital games to decode how cells fail in diseases”
• Rockwell F. Clancy, Department of Engineering Education, “AI is culturally ignorant — That's a problem!”
• Eva Collakova, School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, “Transforming crop health monitoring by playing detectives with lasers”
• Jonathan A. Czuba, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, “Fish who smoke two packs a day”
• Sally Dickinson, School of Animal Sciences, “The dogs who find us: Preparing partners, not tools”
• Shilai Hao, School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, “Goodbye, forever chemicals”
• Kevin Hamed, Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, “Life in the moss: Can conserving salamanders help people?”
• Shabnam Hematian, Department of Chemistry, “Brewing better batteries”
• Marcella Kelly, Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, “Triggering conservation: The lure of using remote cameras to study elusive wild cats"
• Ekanshu Mallick, Department of Geosciences, “Cooking mini planets to study life's origins”
• Steve Matuszak, Department of Marketing, “The #1 fear”
• Scott McCrickard, Department of Computer Science, “Tech on the Trail”
•  Stella Z. Schons, Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, “Paying for forest conservation”
• Igor Sharakhov, Department of Entomology, “How can mosquito genes turn against them?”
• Tess Thompson, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, “Engineering with Nature to restore stream ecosystems”
• Joanne Tuohy, Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, “Using bubbles instead of knives to help dogs and kids beat bone cancer”
• Hajira Younas, School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, “An underground partnership behind every soybean”

    Thank you to the Faculty Nutshell Talks’ generous sponsors, the Offices of Faculty Affairs and Research and Innovation, and thank you to our brave participants, our distinguished panel of judges, and every member of the community who came out to support the presenters and to celebrate science communication in action!

By Erin Smith, Center for Communicating Science project coordinator, with contributions from Ruby Warnick, Virginia Tech undergraduate student majoring in public relations.