Student Presentations

CUWiP at Brown is providing participants with two different presentation opportunities: Poster Presentations and Flash Talks. If participants have research they wish to present, they can sign up for one or both presentation types. Registered participants will receive information to sign-up and submit abstracts in early December. Below are the details of the two presentation types as well as resources for preparing the materials.

Flash Talks

What are they?

CUWiP attendees are encouraged to showcase their research with a Flash Talk on Sunday, January 22, 2023. The Flash Talks provide students with oral presentation practice as well as the chance to receive individualized feedback from other physicists. Non-presenting CUWiP attendees will engage with presenters and learn more about current research of their peers.

How do I sign up to give a Flash Talk at the Brown CUWiP?

If you are interested in giving a Flash Talk at the conference, we will contact conference attendees in early December calling for Flash Talk titles and abstracts. Please keep abstracts short (~250 words or less). Pointers on how to write a good, concise abstract can be found below and in the Resources section of this page. It may help to consult your research advisor or ask for feedback from students who were not a part of the research project.

Flash Talk Logistics

Flash Talks will occur during the parallel session on Sunday January 22nd, 2023 from 9:30-10:15 AM EST in parallel sessions. There will be 10 minutes provided for the presentation. The presenter’s Flash Talks itself should be no longer than 7 minutes and each presenter will then have 3 minutes to engage with listeners by answering their questions. During your presentation, “presentation observers” will take notes on your Flash Talk and provide constructive feedback to assist you in improving your science communication skills. Feedback will be available for students at the conclusion of the session.

Developing Your Flash Talk

Presenters should make a slideshow to go along with their Flash Talk. Your slideshow should include (1) a title slide, (2) scientific background and problem, (3) methods, (4) results/findings, (5) discussion of results, (6) and conclusions.

Since you only have 7 minutes to present your findings, limit your discussion on the specific methods used and focus more on the research problem, results, and conclusions of your work. A good tip for developing a Flash Talk is not to exceed more slides than minutes you have to present. Ideally, presentations should only have 4-5 slides including the title slide the provided timeframe. Limiting the quantity of text used in your presentation and replacing text with well thought-out pictures, drawings, charts, figures, etc. can help you convey more information within the timeframe. All language should be clear and unnecessary jargon avoided. CUWiP attendees span many disciplines within physics, so they may not be familiar with your subfield. A rubric that the presentation observers will be using to guide their feedback is provided to help you format and prepare for your presentation! Resources are also on this page for presenters to reference in preparation.

Poster Presentation

What is it?

The CUWiP poster session illustrates the wide-ranging opportunities the attendees have engaged in to produce new knowledge. CUWiP attendees are encouraged to showcase their scientific research by presenting a poster at the conference. The poster session will be Saturday, Jan 21, 2023 at 4PM EST. Those who are not presenting will have the opportunity to engage with presenters and learn how you to get involved with undergraduate research. Those presenting will be judged based on the conference rubric found here. This is an opportunity to receive feedback on your presentation and win prizes!

How do I sign up to present a research poster at the Brown CUWiP?

If you are interested in presenting a research poster at the conference, we will contact conference attendees in early December calling for poster titles and abstracts. Please keep abstracts short (~250 words or less). Pointers on how to write a good, concise abstract can be found below or in the Resources section. It may help to consult your research advisor or ask for feedback from students who were not a part of the research project.

Poster Logistics

Please limit poster size to 3’ x 4’ (36” x 48”), landscape orientation. We may not be able to accommodate larger poster sizes, as our boards are 40”x60”. You must print and bring your poster with you to CUWiP. We encourage that you request your home institution to help you print the poster.

It is highly recommended to use text font and figures that is visible from ~4-6ft. You should generally not use anything less than 18-point font and stick to only two different sizes: one for titles/section headers and one for paragraphs/data. Also, check the resolutions of your images. Graphs that look fine on a computer screen often turn out fuzzy in print.

Developing Poster Content

Your poster should include (1) a short title, (2) student’s name, (3) collaborator(s) and adviser(s) names, and (4) their department(s), (5) funding sources, (6) research objectives, (7) scientific background and significance to the field, (8) methods, (9) results/findings, (10) interpretation of results, (11) conclusions and directions for future research, and (12) references.

Try to arrange elements of your poster logically by visually drawing attention both to your research problem and conclusions. A simple, elegant design scheme will also increase the overall readability and impact of your poster. The rubric details what each general section should contain, but do not feel confined if you need to add a section to best present your work.

All language should be clear and unnecessary jargon avoided. CUWiP attendees span many disciplines within physics, so they may not be familiar with your subfield. Limit the quantity of text you use on your poster – well thought out pictures, drawings, charts, figures, etc. can convey more information than a large block of text. All components of the poster should be easy to follow even in the absence of the presenter. Save detailed explanations for your verbal interactions during the poster session.

If you’ve never made a research poster before, look at examples from your department and online. Example poster layouts can be found at this link!

Pointers For Writing an Abstract

Abstracts provide a full, concise summary on project or paper’s research and results.

Typically, research abstracts include:

Introduction to the field or topic
Statement of the problem and motivation to solve it
Summary of procedure and approach
Results and their implications

Fitting this into such a restrictive word count can be difficult. A good tip is to start writing the abstract without worrying too much about the word limit, making sure that you include any relevant information. Keep each bullet-point above to maximum of two sentences and edit from there. If this produces text longer than 250 words, analyze if you used unnecessary jargon or information that is not crucial to a summary. There are more tips and examples in the Resources section of this page to help you refine your abstract.

Resources