iBiology Releases Winning Videos for 2016 Young Scientist Seminars

From bacterial warfare to plant sex, the discoveries of these talented young scientists will capture your imagination  

SAN FRANCISCO, October 12, 2016 — iBiology revealed today the winning videos from its second annual Young Scientist Seminars (YSS) contest. YSS is a video series featuring outstanding PhD students and postdocs sharing their research stories through storytelling, analogies, and visuals.

The four winners, Eric Hamilton (Washington University at St. Louis), Julie Huang (Stanford University and Amgen), Mohit Jolly (Rice University) and Michelle LeRoux (University of Washington and MIT), were selected from a pool of accomplished young scientists from around the world. They attended a science communication workshop at iBiology’s headquarters at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) from May 24-27, 2016. During the workshop, led by Valeri Lantz-Gefroh of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, the winners took part in improvisational theater exercises, group breakout sessions and individual coaching. They learned to distill their message, use vivid analogies, and apply storytelling techniques into their talks, which they recorded in a green screen studio at the end of the week.

“During the workshop, I learned to think about communicating science in a completely new light,” said LeRoux. “The training was indeed transformative” added Jolly.

“Effective communication is an essential skill for scientists,” said Dr. Sarah Goodwin, Director of iBiology. “Through the Young Scientist Series, iBiology, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation and the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, are not only providing effective communication training to the next generation of scientific leaders, but also showing the value of such training to a worldwide audience.”   

To learn more about the winners and watch each of their videos in full, please visit the Young Scientist Seminars Series.

Applications for the 2017 Young Scientist Seminars are now open! For full details and to apply visit: https://www.ibiology.org/young-scientist/ Applications will be accepted October 12 through December 15, 2016.

MEET THE 2016 YSS WINNERS

• Eric Hamilton is a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. There he studied the mechanism of how plant pollination occurs.
• Julie Huang is a postdoctoral fellow at Amgen. She presents the results of her doctoral work at Stanford University, where she studied how the pathogen H. pylori survives in the stomach.
• Mohit Jolly is a recently-minted PhD at Rice University in Texas, where he uses theoretical mathematics to understand complex biological systems. His research focuses on the study of the the intrinsic characteristics of cancer metastasis.
• Michelle LeRoux is a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She presents the results of her graduate work at University of Washington, where she studied bacterial social behavior and interspecies warfare.

ABOUT THE YOUNG SCIENTIST SEMINARS

The iBiology Young Scientist Seminars is a collaboration between the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, and iBiology. The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, which seeks to accelerate support for medical research through recognition of scientific excellence, education, and advocacy, kindly provided the financial support. The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, a leading organization in teaching scientists to communicate effectively, provided the training for the winners. iBiology, a nonprofit organization that produces free videos about biology, were the lead organizers of this event and producers of the video series.