Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars stared out confidently as they presented their research to a room full of friends, family and judges for a chance to win $1,000 in this year’s UT Career Center Empower Your Pitch competition. An initial round of 54 applicants whittled down to four winners at Wednesday’s finale in the four respective categories. The Daily Texan interviewed each of the winners about their research and experience in the competition.
Overall Excellence in Research Communication: Cole Maguire, neuroscience Ph.D. candidate
“A Dual Threat: Reactivation of Chronic Viruses in the Wake of COVID-19”
Maguire’s interest in common chronic viruses led to him investigating how COVID might reactivate viruses and affect patients in the short and long term. In dissecting the role hidden viruses might play in disease, Maguire hopes to develop new therapies to target these viruses.
“In this day and age where the (National Institute of Health) is under attack and there’s a lot of questions on scientific validity and funding, this competition was really nice,” Maguire said. “It’s incredibly important for you to be able to communicate (your research) to the public, which we just don’t do, and no one teaches you how to do.”
Outstanding Public Engagement: Lisa Wang, cell and molecular biology Ph.D. candidate
“Does Abnormal Touch Sensitivity Lead to Social Difficulty?”
Wang blended her interest in autism and psychology to study how abnormal touch sensitivity affects symptoms in autism including social difficulty issues. Wang aims to identify the gene mutations causing touch sensitivity in patients.
“This whole process gave me a new perspective on how to really capture the interests of people who are not in science,” Wang said. “It also gave me this chance to see that everyone that needs to is working on something really important that can change our future.”
Outstanding Creativity: Ellen Sirower, piano performance Ph.D. student
“Strange, Beautiful Music: Teaching Musical Interpretation of Post-Tonal Piano Repertoire”
Sirower blends her undergraduate degrees in piano and philosophy to study the teaching of musical interpretation. Sirower seeks to leverage the natural curiosity of young children to reimagine the interpretation of post-tonal music which does not rely on traditional key centers or central harmony.
“The hardest part about writing a dissertation for me, especially coming from a more humanities-based performing arts field, is bringing clarity to my ideas,” Sirower said. “There are a lot of things that can make sense in my head, but then putting it on paper, it’s a very different story. (This competition) contributed to bringing clarity to those ideas.”
Community Choice Award for Excellence: Adwait Pradhan, molecular pharmaceutics and drug delivery Ph.D. candidate
“Downsizing pills: can we make medicines easier to swallow”
Pradhan identified swallowing pills as a major concern for children and seniors. He found that, by using the right mixing process, the size and number of pills a patient has to take can be reduced. Attending the competition for the second time, Pradhan said this year he received detailed feedback and scores from the judges so he understood what the audience deemed important.
“The best part has been talking to all the fellow people and judges,” Pradhan said. “That has definitely helped me not only gain perspective about communication, but also learn some of the remarkable work which has been conducted at this university.”
