Graduate Studies is pleased to announce the top ten finalists for the 2017 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.

Over 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 28 at the ARC. Faculty and staff from across UC Davis volunteered to serve on the judging panels.

The following participants will be moving on to the Final Round:

• Carina Fish, Geology
• Donald Gibson, Integrative Genetics & Genomics 
• Omar Hafez, Civil Engineering
• Mike Huh, Geology
• ​Maci Mueller, Animal Biology
• Marc Pollack, Microbiology
• ​Telha Rehman, Horticulture & Agronomy
• Alex Schmidt, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
• Sam Westreich, Integrative Genetics & Genomics
• ​Youyou Zhang, Civil Engineering

The finalists will compete against each other at the UC Davis Final Round at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art on April 14 from 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm. The event is free and open to the public, and is co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. Registration is now open at gradslam2017.eventbrite.com.

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 recent Ecology doctoral alumnus Matthew Savoca. His presentation was titled "What the nose knows: smell helps explains why marine animals eat plastics." 

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.