Extra Credit - The UC Grand Slam

I initially approached this assignment as it was - an assignment. While I do like to learn about new and upcoming research, I'm not particularly fond of spending my free time learning.

However, this video surprised me. I really enjoyed watching the graduate students present. I was surprised to see the many research presentations relating to brain functions; as a Cognitive Science major, there presentations were the ones that stood out to me. I did think that the presentations would go more into detail of the actual research findings, but I plan to do look into the research I found interesting on my own.

I found Melis Çakar's presentation interesting. While I didn't find her the most engaging presenter, I want to go into Autism research in my future, and I currently am a Research Assistant in an Autism lab at my home UC. I love the learning about the research being done in Autism, so this presentation stood out to me.

I also loved Iris Garcia-Pak's presentation. I liked the metaphor she used in her presentation; using the Brain-Bouncer made her explanation easier to understand. I like neuroscience research, so the topic itself was engaging.

Even though the my top-presenters were in neuroscience, I did enjoy watching the other presenters. I focused on how they presented; all of them had engaging tones, and many started their presentation with a question to the audience. The visuals were engaging as well - one of the presenters (from UCSF) is a scientific illustrator, and drew the images on her presentation! I can use all of these points in my own Scicomm article.

Ultimately, I would vote for Sasha Neil Pimento as my winner. Her energy was unbeatable, and I loved that she included a "solution" to the Doorway effect. The research she was pursuing seemed very new, and cutting-edge. Her research was about creating a possible program to solve the Doorway effect - which is a short-term memory loss phenomena that occurs when we move to a different location. For example, if I go to my bedroom to grab a pair of sunglasses, but once I step into my bedroom from the hallway, I forget what I was even looking for.

As a Cognitive Science major, I definitely am biased; I should never be a judge for this competition. Her findings are related to what I want to study in my future. I want to study memory-related issues that are a result of neurodevelopment disorders.

It was awesome to see the practical outcomes of the convergence of neuroscience and computer science. The program/app that the lab is building was a topic I even brought up to my brother - a Computer Science major also enrolled in the UC system.