| I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, where I work on a suite of research topics related to food systems, environmental governance, impacts of climate change on small-scale land holders, household-level decision-making, and rural-urban food security in sub-Saharan Africa. I hold a PhD in Environmental Science and Policy from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, where I wrote my dissertation on the collective governance of irrigation systems in Tajikistan. I am extremely interested in how policy mechanisms via institutions (or rules) shape formal and informal interactions between social and environmental systems to produce sustainable outcomes. I was personally motivated to participate in the Speed Talk Competition to work on my public speaking skills. Public speaking can often take a backseat in academic training, often to the detriment of promoting our own unique research findings, but also to some extent, the well-being of society. Now, with the challenges we face with the social and economic implications of the coronavirus, I can see how important honing our skills in science communication to diverse audiences can help improve society and our understanding of the world around us. In taking part in this competition, I have been especially grateful to utilize the workshops organized around various elements of public speaking as a way to structure my presentation (Dr. Burçin Mutlu Pakdil – TED talk extraordinaire), develop my slides (Dr. Phyllis Brodsky), and practice delivering a presentation (Dr. Jenny Hoit). Participating in these explicit training sessions have been invaluable, as now I am much more aware of how I can share my research even beyond the Speed Talk Competition in a way that is accessible to both non-scientific audiences and audiences that fall outside of my own field of research. |  Dr. Corrie Hannah |
| Thousands of individuals suffer from hematological malignancies such as lymphoma, myeloma, or leukemia. Individuals may need to undergo a stem cell transplant but often come with the added risk of graft-versus-host disease. My research focuses on examining the effects of beta-adrenergic receptor stimulation and its downstream effects on immune cells and decreasing symptoms of graft-versus-host disease. Specifically, I am aiming to look at mature immune cells and their anti-cancer capacity, as well and stem and progenitor cells and their ability to differentiate and proliferate into more mature immune cells. Being a part of the Postdoc Speed Talk Competition has allowed me to condense my research into a description that the community at large can understand. Often, science is described as having too much research jargon, so being able to practice and market my research has been an incredible experience! |  Dr. Grace Niemiro |
| My research aims to understand and forecast the response of vegetation to complex and interacting environmental changes. Forecasting ecological systems is imperative, as critical ecosystem services to society are at risk under elevated atmospheric CO2, changing climate, and land-use intensification. I take an ecological forecasting approach to predict how future ecosystems will respond to a multitude of environmental changes, with the overall goal of managing ecological systems for a resilient future. My dissertation research assessed the effects of concurrent drivers of environmental change on the Midwest savanna-forest system. I quantified the joint effects of CO2 fertilization and climate change on tree-rings to forecast whether tree growth will increase, or decrease under a warmer future. I quantified the roles of climate and fire-feedbacks in driving alternative stable vegetation states across the region, and showed that historic fire suppression and land-use change shifted vegetation towards forests. I was awarded NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant to support my dissertation work. As a postdoctoral research with Dr. Margaret Evans at the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, my current work aims to forecast forest responses across the interior western US, where forest responses to climate changes are critical, but remain highly uncertain. To improve forecasts, I assimilate two large datasets in a state space modelling framework: repeat forest censuses from the US Forest Service’s Forest Inventory & Analysis and annual tree ring growth records. By leveraging the large-scale spatial network of forest surveys and the responses to climate contained in tree ring records, we can improve our ecological forecasts and manage for resilient forests. Here at the University of Arizona, I have also had the opportunity to present my research as a finalist in the PostDoc Speed Talk Competition. This has given me experience developing my communication skills and discussing my research with broad audiences. |  Dr. Kelly Heilman |
| I am a remote sensing glaciologist in the Department of Geosciences. I study glaciers using satellite data and mathematical models to understand the ice mass loss rates due to climate change. There are a number of problems when the ice loss rates are estimated from field observations. First, the accessibility to remote glaciers at extreme weather conditions are difficult. Second, the observations are sparse in terms of the number of glaciers sampled and they are inconsistent over time. Satellite remote sensing has provided an efficient way to address these problems and used as a tool to monitor the changes in glaciers for several years. In my postdoc, I combine measurements from GRACE satellite gravimetry and glaciological modelling techniques to understand the mass loss rates in the Alaska and Canadian Archipelago. Ice loss rates were calculated from gravity signals at high spatial (number of observations) and temporal (time) intervals. I estimated mas loss rates from glaciers in the Gulf of Alaska and Canadian Archipelago, since they are the largest contributors to the global sea level rise. With global increase in temperature, these glaciers have been losing mass rapidly in the recent decade. This is my first experience in a speed talk competition. The opportunity has enabled to summarize my research findings to non-specialized audiences. It has been quite difficult to communicate the science being a postdoc, as I am often used to technical terms. The speed talk experience has helped me to develop my science communication skills with a limited the use of scientific terminologies. |  Dr. Lavanya Ashokkumar |
| I am a biologist in wildlife conservation and management, and I am interested in understanding how distribution and survival of animal species might change as a result of environmental changes due to habitat deterioration, resource exploitation and climate change. My research starts from two species of tree squirrels, the Mt. Graham red squirrel (Arizona, USA) and the Eurasian red squirrel (Italy). I am studying how weather affects the production of spruce and pine cones in the forest, and how the squirrel populations respond to fluctuations in food availability in terms of space use and survival. Finally, I am investigating how the system will respond to increases in temperatures, fires and extreme weather conditions related to climate change. What I will learn from these systems will be useful to also understand other species that may be in danger of extinction or threatened because of the rapid changes we are inducing in our planet. And knowledge means conservation actions! Preparing my speed talk for the competition has been challenging. As scientists, we often don’t realize how words that we consider common are actually not for a general audience. Precipitation? Better rain. Habitat? Better species’ environment. Sometimes they may not be perfect synonyms, but they transfer the message better and a we can become more effective in sharing information and affect people’s lives. |  Dr. Maria Vittoria Mazzamuto |
| The Sun is continuously emitting a stream of charged particles into the interplanetary space. These particles are called the solar wind plasma – an ionized gas that files the heliosphere. It proceeds to interact with planets, satellites and other celestial objects, delivering a flux of pressure and energy. The physical mechanisms of the solar wind acceleration are not known. Also, the expanding ionized gas is expected, from the laws of thermodynamics, to have certain temperature profile, depending on the distance from the Sun. However, the predicted profiles are not measured – the temperatures measured by various spacecraft between Sun and Earth are substantially higher than expected. This is a trace of one or more physical mechanisms that are heating the solar wind as it expands, using the energy that is extracted from the electromagnetic waves, which naturally evolve in plasmas. These mechanisms are clear and theoretically well explained, but which one of them has the dominant role in shaping the Solar system as we know it is very difficult to distinguish from observations. My task is to isolate some of these physical processes and, using adequate theory and observations from several interplanetary missions, provide estimates on importance of these particular processes in the solar wind heating. Participating in the Speed talk competition is a very profound experience that required me to put in motion a lot of the "soft skills" that are very important for a postdoc and combine them in order to organize and deliver an understandable but interesting, and short but informative public speech. |  Dr. Mihailo Martinovic |
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