Engage, Inform, Inspire: Bringing Your Presentation Skills to the Next Level (420)

9 and 16 March 2016 COMPLET/FULL

Dr Adria Leboeuf

This 2-day intensive workshop will help participants to improve their presentation skills for application beyond the group-meeting setting. While certainly valuable to future academics, this workshop is especially valuable to individuals who plan to break out of the typical academic path (future entrepreneurs, future business leaders, science communicators), where excellent communication skills can make - or break - a career. The workshop will begin with each participant giving a brief 7-minute conference-style presentation of their work. This will be the example talk that each student will use to apply his or her new skills throughout the course. We will identify each participants' points of difficulty, and together, we will push past them, through interactive group- and individual-exercises where the participant will receive ample feedback both from the instructor and from other participants. The first day will focus on presentation design: different styles of story-arcs, structure, depth, and visualisations, specifically with a focus on presenting and discussing scientific data. During the intervening week between the two days of the workshop, participants will continue to develop their model talk based on what they've learned the first day. The second day of the workshop will focus on the performance and practice of the talk. How to hook and keep the audience? How to be engaging in both voice and body language? Participants will learn to use specific verbal devices to communicate clearly in a memorable way. The workshop will close with each participant presenting his or her talk in its new form.

Learning outcomes: The doctoral candidate will have developed his or her public speaking and scientific storytelling skills by preparing one excellent model talk on his/her research. In the process, he/she will also have garnered skills for creating and delivering impressive future presentations, namely:

• innovative ways to explain complex data
• different ways to structure presentations
• knowledge of his/her own performances tics and how to push past them
• how to physically, verbally, and vocally command the attention of one's audience and make a lasting positive impression

Pedagogical methods The workshop will be very interactive. Students should wear comfortable clothes that they can move in and they should bring their laptops, or a thumb-drive and a notebook and pen. Participants' talks will be filmed and each person can take home his or her talk as the end of each day for future study.

Requirements
Participants should be comfortable and able to express themselves in English (level B2/C1), and they should also be moderately experienced in giving presentations (lab meetings, departmental meetings, etc.).

Intended Audience

This workshop is beneficial to all doctoral candidates who have a story to tell.

Université de Lausanne

Date: Wednesdays 9th and 16th March 2016

Schedule: 9:30 to 18:00

Location: University of Lausanne

Trainer: Adria Le Boeuf is a multi-disciplinary scientist and a specialist in creating new stories about scientific research. Adria is the founder of The Catalyst (www.thecatalyst.ch), a cross-disciplinary theater group for scientists working to improve communication skills and to create new science-driven media (most recently, bluebutterflyplay.ch). Adria has been highly involved in TEDxLausanne, as a curator, speaker coach and MC since 2012. In this capacity, she has coached many speakers including professors and business leaders from IMD, UNIL, UniNe, HEC, and the Weizmann Institute, one of whom went on to speak at TEDGlobal. Adria has taught workshops in combining science and storytelling at UNIL, the Lift conference and at CERN.

In her scientific life as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne, she manages a project on the chemical crowdsourcing of long-term decisions in ant colonies through trophallaxis. This project itself spans proteomics, bioinformatics, molecular biology, protein biochemistry, insect endocrinology, pharmacology, and complex automated behavioral analysis.

Participants are eligible for reimbursement of incurred travel expenses by train between the town of their university and the location of the workshop (half-fare card, 2nd class). For full-day workshops, lunch costs will be reimbursed upon presentation of original receipts (no photocopies or scans). A reimbursement form will be supplied to all registered participants for this workshop.

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