Science Conferences

Biocurious: Anatomy of a seminar*

They don’t all go like this, but the vast majority of seminars I attend seem to follow this general outline.

1. Introduction of Esteemed Speaker by Local Professor with the largest overlap in research interests. Enumeration of every award Esteemed Speaker has ever garnered is standard issue, and if Local Professor and Esteemed Speaker know each other, humorous story from “well, not THAT long ago” is recounted, though chances are you probably had to be there (unless it involves breaking obscenely expensive equipment, in which case everyone has a good laugh).

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By all means, click through, but I will say that the short talks (which are what I give/gave) which follow the plenary speakers aren't that much different. Basically, the quickie-version. Hopefully, you won't repeat the previous speakers, but they'll have been similar enough that you can hit the ground running. Wham, bam, thank-you ma'am. My advice is to use non-serifed (helevtia et al) fonts for legibility, tell a story, and use the whole thing for a poster which you run in parallel (posters are easy to get at OSA conferences).

*for those keeping score at home, I'm an idiot.