It can be really intimidating talking about your research to other scientists – especially your seniors – as a trainee. In interviews, research presentations, group meetings, or just informal “what do you work on?”s. You might (mistakenly) think that they know everything – at least way more than you do. So you might have a tendency to dive straight into the details and use a ton of fancy terms. But you need to remember that you actually know more about your super specific topic than they do! And even if they’re an expert in their research topic, they might not have enough background knowledge to really appreciate those details (or even understand those fancy terms since the jargon differs between fields, sub fields, and even labs). Therefore, you need to make sure you bring everyone – even established scientists – up to speed on the context of your research before you dive in. 

link to video in case embed isn’t working: https://youtu.be/ZDBCivC7K04 

Even if your audience is familiar with the general context (overall jigsaw puzzle), point out what gaps in the known knowledge exist (what missing puzzle pieces)- contextualize your project – and then dive in. (Of course, the amount of context needed will vary by audience so be cognizant of that and adapt accordingly but don’t just assume they know everything just because they have a PhD!). 

Now that you’ve told them what gap you want to address and why, tell them how you’re addressing it and what you’ve found. Make sure to walk them through any figures if it’s unclear how to interpret them without having looked at them bazillions of times. 

After you talk about all that, the details of your puzzle piece, bring things back to the bigger puzzle. How does your work contribute, what are the implications? What is still missing? Tell a puzzle-solving story! 

And, when you do so, do it with passion! Let your excitement for your research shine through and it will help them engage and get excited about your research too!

For anyone going through the grad school interview process, I hope this past post can help: http://bit.ly/gradschoolinterviewadvice  ; YouTube: https://youtu.be/8dT_H71JO3k 

And for lots more grad school- and postdoc-related content, I have a whole blog page full of posts on it: https://bit.ly/gradpostdocetc & YouTube playlists: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUWsCDtjESrE5by6kK_GsGNPQtmdaVynz