Last month, eight TRIUMF students and postdocs took their turn giving presentations about their field of research in front of an auditorium filled with their peers and a panel of senior reviewers. The Society of Graduate Students and Postdocs at TRIUMF brought together this mini-symposium in preparation for the very same talks to be given at CAP's annual congress the following week in Ontario. This symposium was a continuation of the presentation skills workshop held on March 7 where the graduate students and postdocs practiced and peer-evaluated their presentations.
"The aim was to provide students and postdocs attending the 2014 CAP Congress with the opportunity to present in front of their peers and practice their talks. Attendees had a chance to learn about the cutting-edge research performed at TRIUMF," said Alejandro de la Puente, the enthusiasticand engaging moderator of the event. "The symposium was attended by a number of students, postdocs, and scientists who were interested in being updated on the research performed at TRIUMF," Alejandro concluded.
At the morning session, Alejandro welcomed guests and introduced the day's proceedings. Each pundit would be given 15 minutes with 12 for their lecture and 3 for questions and answers. Two reviewers with extensive symposium experience participated in each session and crafted detailed evaluations for each presenter. The presentations were reviewed for the significance of the research results being presented, the quality of the slides and of the speech. The criteria used by the reviewers matched that used by CAP judges.
The morning session included the nuclear physics talks. Steffen Cruz, Jason Park and Rob Collister shared their research with TRIUMF's Greg Hackman and Iris Dillmann as their reviewers.
After a pizza lunch, the symposium shifted focus to particle physics research. Particle physicists Kendall Mahn, Matthew Gignac, Katerina Katsika and Simon Viel articulated their work for Byron Jennings and Akira Konaka as well as their peers.
"The mini-symposium was a great opportunity to share research which I feel passionately about in a comfortable and supportive environment," said Matthew Gignac. His research "focuses on searches for hints of new physics in high energy proton collisions with the ATLAS detector at CERN."
"The symposium was a success! The quality of the speakers and presentations were excellent and the event ran smoothly," said Alejandro.
"This symposium was proven quite helpful for finalizing my CAP talk based on the feedback I got from my supervisor and the [reviewers]...I had to focus more on aspects of my work that -in this initial symposium talk - I had not stressed and explained enough," said Katerina Katsika. Her research investigates "the voltagebreakdown in Xe gas in 1 mTorr area to implement the results into the neutron electric dipole moment experiment at TRIUMF."
All students and postdocs gave excellent presentations at the CAP Congress and Steffen Cruz went on to compete as a finalist in the 2014 CAP Congress BEST STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION (ORAL) for his paper, "Shape co-existence in Sr-exotic isotope."
For more information and upcoming events, visit www.triumf.ca/sgsp.
The Society of Graduate Students and Postdocs Committee includes Alejandro de la Puente, Naomi Galinski, Travis Martin, Ania Kwiatkowski, Jonathan Kozaczuk. The TRIUMF Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Researchers program is led by TRIUMF Scientist Anadi Canepa.
By Kyla Shauer, Communications Assistant
Group Photo (from left to right): Rob Collister, Kendall Mahn, Simon Viel, Matthew Gignac, Jason Park, Steffen Cruz and Alejandro de la Puente. Missing: Katerina Katsika.