Julia Mouat, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Integrative Genetics and Genomics Graduate Group, won second place in the UC Grad Slam competition held on May 5 at the LinkedIn Headquarters in San Francisco. She competed against nine other graduate students representing each of the other universities in the University of California system.

“I really enjoyed participating in Grad Slam, particularly in meeting the contestants from other UC campuses and staying in San Francisco,” she said. “I was happy to win second place, because I felt that all the three-minute speeches were excellent—really engaging and performed well.”

Mouat is only the second person from UC Davis to earn a UC Grad Slam award since the UC wide competition that focuses on promoting graduate student research began in 2015. Former UC Davis graduate student Katie Murphy won first place in UC Grad Slam competition in 2019, bringing home “The Slammy” for the Aggies.

“We are so proud of Julia and want to congratulate her on this achievement,” said Jean-Pierre Delplanque, vice provost and dean of Graduate Studies. “This year’s UC Grad Slam was once again a difficult competition with incredible presentations from our systemwide graduate students; but, Julia’s presentation stood out for its creativity, accessibility and depth.”

 

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.

 

Grandmas, Ghosts and Genes

Using only one slide and talking for less than three-minutes, Mouat explained to a lay audience in an understandable and engaging way her complex research in multi-generational epigenetics, which is the study of how one’s behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way genes work. 

In her presentation “Grandmas, Ghosts, and Genes,” Mouat shared how her research has shown that the lifestyle choices and environmental exposures of a grandparent can impact the health of their grandchild. Specifically, Mouat’s research is looking at how grandmaternal cigarette smoking may increase risk for autism spectrum disorder in a grandchild.

 

Caring about science communications

Mouat decided to enter the 2023 UC Grad Slam competition for a chance to “go back to her public speaking roots.” She was a public speaking coach during her undergraduate years at the University of Pittsburgh. 

“When I came to grad school, I was always looking for opportunities to do science communications because I think that is something that is really important and that I care about,” she said. 

While Mouat was well-versed in public speaking, she said it was more difficult than expected to boil down four years of research into a three-minute presentation. Determining the most salient and interesting parts of her research took a long time.

“I tried to really think through what got me excited about my research when I first started doing it and first joined the lab,’” said Mouat who is part of the LaSalle Lab. “And then use that to try and understand what other people might find engaging about it.”

Mouat said it was purposeful to leverage people’s memories of their grandparents to draw in the audience and make the topic of her research approachable. She also has always had a fondness for using the term “ghosts,” a common phrase used in genetic research to describe genetic abnormalities that are passed from generation to generation. Next thing Mouat knew, she said had a catchy, alliterative title for her speech that would capture people’s attention. 

“My thought was to come up with something that people would read and think, ‘I don’t know how those things go together,’” she said. “I started with the ‘ghost’ thing because the whole ‘ghosts in our genes’ phrase is something I read, and I’ve always loved that phrasing. Then I thought, okay, I’ve got two Gs with ghosts and genes. Then I realized I was talking about grandmas. So, I added that in and it all flowed perfectly.”

 

Prepping for and participating in Grad Slam

To prepare for the competition, Mouat said she watched videos of past UC Grad Slam participants and received one-on-one coaching offered by Graduate Pathways Institute—the professional development division of Graduate Studies. Her partner and fellow UC Davis graduate student, Morgan Domanico, also provided helpful feedback along the way. 

Mouat said she has thoroughly enjoyed the whole UC Grad Slam experience—including both the UC Davis semi-final round and the UC competition. Mouat received a $2,500 check for winning the UC Davis competition and a $4,000 check for winning second place in the UC competition. She says she plans to use the money to travel to visit friends and family.