Grad Studies Announces 2018 UC Davis Grad Slam Finalists
Graduate Studies is pleased to announce the top ten finalists for the 2018 Grad Slam competition at UC Davis.
UC Grad Slam is an annual contest in which master’s and Ph.D. students across UC campuses – in disciplines ranging from hard sciences to humanities – compete to sum up their research for a general audience. Students present the significance and fundamental points of their work at UC Davis in a clear, direct and interesting manner.
80 master's and doctoral students from across UC Davis' 99 graduate programs submitted proposals for this year's competition, which kicked off with a qualifying round on February 8 at the Student Community Center. Faculty and staff from across UC Davis volunteered to serve on the judging panels.
The following participants will be moving on to the UC Davis Final Round:
(click on each finalist's name to read their spotlight feature)
- Mayowa Adegboyega, Anthropology
- Hanjiro Ambrose, Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Emery Anderson-Merritt, Geology
- Riley Hughes, Nutritional Biology
- Divya Kernik, Biomedical Engineering
- Maci Mueller, Animal Biology
- Augustina Mushale, Nursing Science and Health-Care Leadership
- Stela Petkova, Neuroscience
- Rachel Wigginton, Ecology
- Tooka Zokaie, Public Health
The finalists will compete against each other at the UC Davis Final Round at the ARC on April 5. The event is free and open to the public, and seats can be reserved via Eventbrite. Graduate Studies will be spotlighting each of the finalists in news features in the weeks leading up to the Final Round.
The winner of the campus final round will have the opportunity to compete at the University of California-wide competition on May 4. Last year's UC Davis representative was Integrated Genetics and Genomics Ph.D. candidate Sam Westrich. His presentation was titled “Understanding the Gut Microbiome with Metatranscriptomics.” Following his Grad Slam success, Westreich was featured in a Forbes feature which highlighted his self-publishing side-gig.
For more information about UC Davis Grad Slam, visit the Grad Slam website or contact Kathryn Raley, Event & Engagement Analyst for Graduate Studies, at knraley@ucdavis.edu.