Department of Biology hosts its first Science Slam | MIT News
Eight biology trainees had just three minutes to explain their research and earn favor with the judges and audience in new yearly event.
Nearly 300 spectators crowded into a lecture hall at the Ray and Maria Stata Center on a recent Tuesday to witness the first annual Science Slam, hosted by MIT’s Department of Biology.
A science slam features a series of short presentations where researchers explain their work in a compelling manner and — as the name suggests — make an impact. The presentations aren’t just talks, they’re performances geared towards a science-literate but non-specialized public audience. In this case, competitors were each given one slide and three minutes to tell their scientific tales and earn votes from audience members and judges.
The jury included Ellen Clegg, editorial page editor of The Boston Globe and co-author of two award-winning books, “ChemoBrain” and “The Alzheimer’s Solution;” Emilie Marcus, CEO of Cell Press and editor-in-chief of the flagship journal, Cell; and Ari Daniel, an independent science reporter who produces digital videos for PBS NOVA and co-produces the Boston branch of Story Collider.
Among the competitors were five graduate students and three postdocs who hailed from labs scattered throughout Building 68, the Whitehead Institute, the Broad Institute, the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. The storytellers were:
Vivian Siegel, who oversees the department’s communications efforts, moderated the event. Siegel and the Building 68 communications team joined forces with three members of the Building 68 MIT Postdoctoral Association — Ana Fiszbein, Isabel Nocedal, and Peter Sudmant — to publicize the event and to host two pre-slam workshops, as well as one-on-one training sessions with individual participants.
“Participating in a Science Slam seemed like a great way for our trainees to learn how to communicate to a nonspecialized audience, which is something they will need to be able to do throughout their careers,” Siegel said. “We really wanted to develop a camaraderie among the participants, and bring trainees together from across the department to help each other tell compelling stories about their science.”
Kowal — whose talk was titled “Gone but Not Forgotten: How Do Introns Enhance Gene Expression?” — ultimately took home both the audience and jury cash prizes. Kowal completed her undergraduate degree in chemical and physical biology at Harvard before coming to MIT for graduate school. Her dream is to write science fiction, so she decided she’d better study science so she’d know what to write about.
“I really enjoyed seeing people get stoked about introns, and the fact that they enhance gene expression,” she said. “It's a great way to get comfortable explaining your project in a compelling way to a broad audience. Since you'll probably be telling people about your work for a while, I think it's a very good use of time to practice doing that.”
Reprinted with permission of MIT News