ASCB’s 60-Second Elevator Speech Video Contest winner Stephen DelSignore with his super prize–cool wireless earphones. ASCB photo by John Fleischman
The idea of the Elevator Speech Contest is to imagine yourself with a trapped lay audience and with one minute to convince your fellow passengers—a U.S. Senator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, or a skeptical family member—of the importance of your scientific research. Out of 15 entries submitted by attendees at ASCB 2016, the Elevator Speech judges also named three Honorable Mentions.
Samantha Sellers, East Carolina University, managed to use the word “autophagy,” without scaring off a lay viewer by quickly explaining that it was a recycling system for cells. Autophagy—and what goes wrong—is the focus of her research into runaway immune signaling that drives arthritis.
Angie Hilliker, an assistant professor at the University of Richmond, told how a sister’s kidney disease turned her educational interest toward cell biology and eventually toward research into mRNA protein complexes.
Tyler Allen, a grad student, at North Carolina State University, works on stem cell infusion therapy to jump start muscle regeneration for cardiac disease patients. Allen wowed the judges by carefully thanking the American taxpayer and the National Institutes of Health for funding his lab’s research.
About the Author:
John Fleischman was the ASCB Senior Science Writer from 2000 to 2016. Best unpaid perk of the job? Working with new grad students and Nobel Prize winners.
