I'm in the airport on my way to Halifax for the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution (CSEE) conference. I'm flying a few days early to spend time with some friends... and that meant showing my presentation to my supervisor on Thursday. Now, if you read the last post you know I did the chemical immobilization course all last week (in fact, until Thursday at 12). Guess when I had to present to my supervisor? Thursday at 12.
Needless to say, I did not have any time to change my presentation from the OEEC conference. I do plan to present some additional data but that had to be added verbally on the fly while I presented to my lab. The two PhD students went before me, and of course both of their presentations were well composed and they were well spoken. Then it was my turn... every slide had a problem, sometimes my intonation was wrong, my conclusion was weak... and I was missing some data (which I likely will not get analyzed in time for the conference).
Groan. Not my finest moment, but at least all the bad things have been pointed out to me and I conveniently now have a week to fix them. I'd rather make an ass out of myself in front of my lab than a whole room of CSEE conference goers! That's my first task for tomorrow - edit presentation. Wish me luck!
Showing posts with label presentation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presentation. Show all posts
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Students go to conferences to give talks?
Apparently. And I was under the distinct impression it was to drink entirely too many free pitchers and party grad-student style - all kidding aside, I just got back from OEEC 2009. If there's anything I know about science, it's that it LOVES acronyms.
OEEC is the Ontario Ecology and Ethology Colloquium, which was held at Queens University in Kingston this year. Students from universities from all over Ontario come together to give talks about their research or to show their research proposals. The subjects included sexual selection, climate change, population biology, environmental contamination, animal behaviour... the list goes on.
As with every conference, there were some good and some bad. Some of the interesting talks included one about nest morphologies in the yellow warbler by Vanya Rohwer at Queens University (supervisor: Paul Martin - what an unfortunate name to get stuck with). Yellow warblers make thicker and warmer nests up north than they do further south. He tested the temperature differences in these nests and found the thicker ones (which incorporated feathers and fluffy plant material) to be warmer. The thinner southern nests are more appropriate for warmer, wetter weather, which you find in southern Ontario. Whether they are locally adapted or showing plasticity remains to be seen.
Another interesting talk was about male seismic (vibration) signaling in jumping spiders by Sen Sivalinghem at University of Toronto (supervisor: Maydianne Andrade). I had no idea jumping spiders did mating dances to attract females, nor that they actually vibrated when they did them. First he classified different frequencies of vibrations, from courtship to aggressive courtship to male rivalry. Then he looked at virgin females and mated females and which behaviour the spiders exhibited to them. The males were more likely to make courtship vibrations for virgin females and aggressive courtship vibrations for mated females.
My talk went well. It was titled "Thermal properties of tree cavities in winter and implications for flying squirrels". The fact that I study flying squirrels usually helps take the edge off, and keeps people's attention (at least a little bit). Of course I spent the two days before the conference putting in 12 hour days trying to prep my talk, after assuming that the last talk I gave was "good enough". It didn't take me long to realize that I had to develop some new ways to display data when I looked at some slides that stated findings with no depictions of the results :S
Of course, I hadn't booked time with my supervisor to go over my presentation, and by the time I realized how much work I needed to do, it was Friday afternoon. And I was home. I sent my supervisor several garbled emails (to which he replied he did not understand) looking for stats explanations. Finally I broke down and called the PhD student, nearly begging for help. He walked me through my graphical dilema like a pro and I had a list of steps to create some nice depictions in no time :) Andrea:1 Procrastination: 0
Overall, the conference was interesting and good practice for the CSEE (Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution) conference in May.
OEEC is the Ontario Ecology and Ethology Colloquium, which was held at Queens University in Kingston this year. Students from universities from all over Ontario come together to give talks about their research or to show their research proposals. The subjects included sexual selection, climate change, population biology, environmental contamination, animal behaviour... the list goes on.
As with every conference, there were some good and some bad. Some of the interesting talks included one about nest morphologies in the yellow warbler by Vanya Rohwer at Queens University (supervisor: Paul Martin - what an unfortunate name to get stuck with). Yellow warblers make thicker and warmer nests up north than they do further south. He tested the temperature differences in these nests and found the thicker ones (which incorporated feathers and fluffy plant material) to be warmer. The thinner southern nests are more appropriate for warmer, wetter weather, which you find in southern Ontario. Whether they are locally adapted or showing plasticity remains to be seen.
Another interesting talk was about male seismic (vibration) signaling in jumping spiders by Sen Sivalinghem at University of Toronto (supervisor: Maydianne Andrade). I had no idea jumping spiders did mating dances to attract females, nor that they actually vibrated when they did them. First he classified different frequencies of vibrations, from courtship to aggressive courtship to male rivalry. Then he looked at virgin females and mated females and which behaviour the spiders exhibited to them. The males were more likely to make courtship vibrations for virgin females and aggressive courtship vibrations for mated females.
My talk went well. It was titled "Thermal properties of tree cavities in winter and implications for flying squirrels". The fact that I study flying squirrels usually helps take the edge off, and keeps people's attention (at least a little bit). Of course I spent the two days before the conference putting in 12 hour days trying to prep my talk, after assuming that the last talk I gave was "good enough". It didn't take me long to realize that I had to develop some new ways to display data when I looked at some slides that stated findings with no depictions of the results :S
Of course, I hadn't booked time with my supervisor to go over my presentation, and by the time I realized how much work I needed to do, it was Friday afternoon. And I was home. I sent my supervisor several garbled emails (to which he replied he did not understand) looking for stats explanations. Finally I broke down and called the PhD student, nearly begging for help. He walked me through my graphical dilema like a pro and I had a list of steps to create some nice depictions in no time :) Andrea:1 Procrastination: 0
Overall, the conference was interesting and good practice for the CSEE (Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution) conference in May.
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