On Nov. 26, the seventh “Introducing My Research (IMR)” was held. As the name implies, IMR is a science communication competition among students and researchers of POSTECH who are given three minutes to introduce their research without using a PowerPoint (PPT) presentation. IMR was inspired by an international science communication competition, “FameLab”, and this year’s IMR was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those who desired to apply for the IMR submitted a script by Nov. 9, and finalists were selected based on their scripts. For this year’s IMR, six speakers, who were all graduate students, made it to the final entry. The three judges consisted of Dr. Min-ryung Song, a neuroscientist and brain science communicator, Professor Chunghyoung Lee (HSS), and Lee Suk-hyun (CHEM M.S.), the winner of last year’s IMR. The event was live-streamed on YouTube, and the audience was able to fill out surveys and ask questions to the speakers during the event.
The event began with a keynote speech by Dr. Min-ryung Song, who presented her research fields and shared the story of how she became a neuroscientist. After the speech, each speaker was given three minutes to introduce their research, followed by questions from the judges. This year though, unlike the previous years, a pre-recorded speech was played on screen due to the last year’s case in which the speech was interrupted by an unstable internet connection. Each speech was evaluated based on several criteria, including whether the speech was understandable for laymen, accurate enough content-wise, compelling enough to attract attention, and punctual within the three-minute time limit.
After all six speakers presented their research, there was a Q&A session. The audience sent their questions during the event via surveys, and each speaker selected one question to answer. Afterward, the award ceremony took place. This year’s IMR winner was Kim Do-kyoung (CE M.S.), who presented his research about the drawbacks and applications of nano-catalysts. The winner received 1.5 million KRW as an award. Alongside the ceremony, there was also a lottery session for the audience, and gifts such as an iPad and AirPod were distributed.