Overview
The David T. Kearns Center’s Research Symposium celebrates the accomplishments of research scholars who participate in the summer research programs.
Summer Research Symposium
The Kearns Center Summer Research Symposium is usually held at the end of July.
On the day of, all students should be dressed professionally and should stay to support one another until program ends. Breakfast, lunch, and other refreshments are provided.
Schedule
The symposium is divided into several sections:
Oral Presentations
Students will deliver 12-minute oral presentations concerning their summer research project. Presentations will use PowerPoint software and template, and a mix of text and graphics to convey projects that are visually interesting and accessible to a large group of others. There will be Q&A sessions (three-minutes) for each presentation.
Questions to guide the oral presentation are a clear articulation of:
- What you did
- How you did it
- Why you did it
- The contributions to your field and the larger field of human knowledge
Students should review the PowerPoint guideline page before creating their PowerPoint. Students can also reach out to their research advisor(s) and Kearns advisor with questions. Slide presentations and content could vary depending on feedback. This is to be used as a preliminary guide to get you started.
Kearns 4x20 Lightning Talk Guidelines
These high‐energy one minute and twenty second talks provide an opportunity for scholars to share key points about their research in a fun and engaging way. You will have exactly four slides that will advance automatically every 20 seconds. No animations or embedded video are permitted in the slides.
The goal of the talk is to connect the audience with an idea and provide attendees with a name and face to follow up with if they want more information on the subject presented during the poster session. Due to their nature, these talks are not deep. Focus on the key points regarding what matters most.
Questions to guide the lightning talk presentation are a clear articulation of:
- What you did
- Why you did it
- The contributions to your field and the larger field of human knowledge
For more information see the lightning talks page. You can reach out to your research advisor(s) and Kearns advisor with questions. Slide presentations and content could vary depending on feedback.
Poster Session
Students will produce a 3’ x 4’ poster that combines text and graphics to present your project in a way that is visually interesting and accessible, and formatted similar to this scaled poster example. During the poster session, students will provide oral overviews of the poster and address questions from individual audience members.
The purpose of a poster is to make people see the value of your research project. To do this, you will need to determine what you want your take-home message to be. Once you have an idea about what that take-home message is, you will need to support it by adding some details about:
- What you did
- How you did it
- Why you did it
- The contributions to your field and the larger field of human knowledge
Students should review the poster example before creating their poster. Students can also reach out to their research advisor(s) and Kearns advisor with questions. Poster content could vary depending on feedback. This is to be used as a preliminary guide to get you started.
Submission
Students are strongly encouraged to work with their faculty to create the final presentation and poster. Final submissions will be made electronically to the Kearns Center.
Final poster submission should be submitted online through our final poster submission form.
Final PowerPoint slides for the oral and lightning talk should be submitted online through our PowerPoint slide submission form. Lighting talks should be submitted using the following naming format: Lastname_Firstname_Program.