Julie Huang, Mohit Jolly, Michelle LeRoux, and Eric Hamilton.

Clockwise from upper left: Julie Huang, Mohit Jolly, Michelle LeRoux, and Eric Hamilton.

The Lasker Foundation is proud to partner with iBiology in support of the Young Scientist Seminars (YSS), an annual competition that encourages early-career scientists to share their their research to the public through storytelling, analogies, and visuals.

The four winners, Eric Hamilton (Washington University at St. Louis), Julie Huang (Stanford University and Amgen), Mohit Jolly (Rice University) and Michelle LeRoux (University of Washington and MIT), were selected from a pool of accomplished young scientists from around the world. They attended a science communication workshop at iBiology’s headquarters at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) from May 24-27, 2016. During the workshop, led by Valeri Lantz-Gefroh of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, the winners took part in improvisational theater exercises, group breakout sessions and individual coaching. They learned to distill their message, use vivid analogies, and apply storytelling techniques into their talks, which they recorded in a green screen studio at the end of the week.

The 2016 winners’ videos are below.

Julie Huang: H. pylori finds its home

Eric Hamilton: Pollen’s pressure problem–relieving sexual tension through evolution

Michele LeRoux: Pseudomonas aeruginosa survives with a gut reaction using their T6SS

Mohit Jolly: Circulating tumor cell cluster–a model for cancer metastasis