April 2nd and 3rd marks the fifth consecutive year the Graduate Student Association (GSA) has hosted the Interdisciplinary Graduate and Professional Student Symposium (IGPS). This year, an exciting new competition, Grad Slam, will be incorporated throughout the two-day symposium. IGPS aims to allow graduate and professional students from all disciplines to perform and/or present their research to not only their colleagues but also the larger campus and community.

“The event is student-run and student-driven,” says Robyn Jimenez, coordinator of this year’s IGPS and GSA Campus Organizing Director. “IGPS has a cool student spirit and grassroots vibe to it. It’s local and free to [participate in and attend for] all graduate and professional students.”

The two-day event features poster sessions, oral presentations, student-organized panels, and art performances which are eligible to win cash prizes for their respective categories at the end of the symposium. “IGPS is a way to showcase your research to the community and get feedback. It’s a good way to network, collaborate, and start new research with others,” Jimenez says.

The symposium also strives to get students to broaden their ideas and fields. “For new students it can help inspire a new direction,” says Ralph McNeilage, who is on the planning committee for IGPS and treasurer for GSA. “It provides a fantastic atmosphere for collaborations that you may not think of otherwise…[and] the more senior students can use IGPS as a way to prepare their ideas for a broader audience,” adds McNeilage.

The new addition to this year’s IGPS, Grad Slam, is a UC system-wide competition based on the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) contest originally founded by The University of Queensland, Australia, in 2008. This event, too, will offer a number of cash prizes. The Grand Prize will also include an all-expense paid trip to the Bay Area to compete against other UC system Grand Prize winners. In only its first year at UC Davis, Grad Slam has already garnered a high number of participants.
“Grad Slam presentations will have very general audience-level research statements. [The goal is to] highlight the significance of the research to the community and emphasize its broader impact,” says Jiminez. “It’s [essentially] an elevator pitch of the abstract.”

Event Schedule

Thursday, April 2, 2015

• 3:00 - 5:00 pm – Performances, AGR Ballroom, Buehler Alumni and Visitor's Center
• 6:00 - 8:00 pm – Poster Session, Ballroom ABC UC Davis Conference Center

Friday April 3, 2015 --UC Davis Conference Center

• 8:00 am - 9:00 am – GSA Coffee, Bagel, Donut Day, Lobby
• 9:00 am - 3:15 pm – Oral Presentations, Ballroom ABC
• 9:00 am - 10:15 am – Student Organized Sessions, Conference Room B
• 9:00 am - 10:15 am – Inaugural Grad Slam Round, Conference Room A
• 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm – Grad Slam Final Round, Conference Room A
• 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm – Resource Reception, Moss Patio (Alumni Center)
• 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm – Awards Banquet with Keynote Speaker Cleveland Justis, MBA, Ballroom ABC

More information on student presentations:  2015 Program Schedule   2015 Abstract Book

2015 IGPS Keynote Speaker

Cleveland Justis is the executive director of the Executive Director of the UC Davis Child Family Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In this role, Justis is responsible for helping students, faculty, and staff move ideas from the lab into the world. Many of these research ideas have resulted in successful companies and life-saving inventions getting commercialized. Justis has a passion for interdisciplinary research – his current research projects include looking at entrepreneurial networks at the intersection of business, government, and nonprofit sectors. Formerly, Justis was the director and co-founder of the Institute at the Golden Gate. Prior to this position, Justis was the Executive Director of the award-winning Headlands Institute in Sausalito, California. Justis is an active volunteer in the community, currently serving as the board chair of the Marin Community Foundation, a large community foundation with over $1.6 billion in assets. Additionally, he formerly served on the board of directors of Net Impact, an organization with a global network of over 15,000 leaders who are changing the world through business.