Our inaugural Symposium for STEM students launched this summer, under the vision and leadership of Dr. Noeen Malik, Director of Communications & Events at SCWIST and chair of the symposium and Ashley van der Pouw Kraan, symposium vice-chair. There were 15 presentations held every Wednesday at 12pm PST from June to September.
After weeks of presentations, multiple rounds of judging and one mega-finale event, we are ready to announce the winners of the Science Symposium!
These exceptional young scientists have been awarded for their presentations and commitment to an innovative and significant research project. Please join us in giving them our biggest congratulations:
First place: Robin Hayes for her presentation, Measurements of Higgs Boson Cross-Sections at the Large Hadron Collider
Second place: Kristen Hayward for her presentation, New genomics for non-invasively monitoring Canada’s polar bear populations
Third place: Jamie Korner for her presentation, Artificial cells-on-a-chip for drug permeability prediction
Women enrolled in undergraduate, graduate and PhD STEM programs related to five categories:
Drug discovery — Oncology & neuroscience
Physical science — Particle physics
Machine learning — Artificial intelligence
Global warming — Earth & environmental science
Bioengineering/technology — Biosensing
Applicants should not be older than 35 years, on April 15, 2021.
Abstracts submitted for competition should be: published and NOT older than 1.5 years on April 15, 2021 (Due to restricted work during the pandemic, abstracts published from October 15, 2019 to April 15, 2021 are allowed for submission). Abstracts not published yet are also acceptable, however, the applicant needs to submit a no-conflict statement, signed by both applicant and supervisor, in a single abstract pdf file. If you have questions, please email us (see below).
Students can submit more than one abstract on different topics related to one category.
In each session, one young scientist will present their research and have a discussion with two senior scientists (judges) about the presented work.
The young scientist and the judges will be affiliated with different institutes, but in the same research area. (A great opportunity for students to make external faculty connections!)
Students will submit their abstracts via the online application form found at the bottom of this page. Application submission is free.
Abstracts should be in scientific as well as lay format, and each of the abstracts should not be more than 150 words. One to two figures/tables related to the research work are encouraged to be included to provide references.
The uploaded abstract file should be either a .doc or .pdf document. Please ensure both abstracts (lay and scientific), and any figures/tables, are in a single file.
For each of the 15 sessions, one student will be selected to participate. The selected students will register through an Eventbrite link (provided via email).
All the sessions will be held on YouTube Live.
There will be a Q&A between the speaker, judges, and audience at the end of each session.
Both the presenter and the judges can invite their research fellows to attend the session for free. Attendance is free for all audience members.
In the final session, three winners will be announced and awarded their prize money and SCWIST certificates during the Mega event on September 22, 2021 (12-13pm PST)
A small honorarium will be awarded to the other 12 finalists.
Dr. Thomas J Ruth Emeritus Professor, Department of Medicine, UBC Emeritus Scientist, TRIUMF & BC Cancer Research Center Fellow of Royal Society of Canada
Category: Drug Discovery — Oncology & Neuroscience
Dr. Isabel Trigger Senior Scientist, TRIUMF Adjunct Professor, University of Victoria
Category: Physical Science — Particle Physics
Dr. Bethany Edmunds Board Member, Women in Machine Learning, Director of Computer Science, Northeastern University
The top three abstracts from each category will be selected for presentation (for a total of 15 abstracts from all five categories), based on the quality of the research, NOT on the seniority of the students. This selection will be done after reviewing all submitted abstracts by our symposium board committee members.
Selection will be based on:
Novelty: idea, design (10 point-scale)
Methodology: approach, scientific design, percentage of student’s input (15 points-scale, out of which 10 points will go according to percentage contribution of the student)
Applications: current applications, benefits to society (10 points scale, how this project may benefit society)
Future scope: the growth within next five years (5 point-scale)
Winners will be selected based on a 30 point-scale criteria:
Presentation: how comprehensive and precise the presentation material is (10 points)
Knowledge: how well-informed the presenter is (5 points)
Interaction: how well the student delivered their presentation, how easy/complex the delivery was for the audience to follow along with, how well the presenter answered questions (15 points)
Content: points earned from the first round (the abstracts reviewing process) will be added to the points earned in the live session.
Sessions Layout
Introduction: Welcome from SCWIST, introducing the speaker and the senior faculty member (10 minutes)
Senior SCWIST Members would like to gift SCWIST membership (1 Year) by acknowledging the efforts of our young scientists in research and development. We’ll soon send emails (with instructions) to the students who showed interest in this gift. Our prestigious SCWIST members who are keen to bring students to the SCWIST platform are:
Juanita DeSouza-Huletey Member of the Board of Governors of the University of Manitoba Instructor (Project Management and Business), University of Winnipeg
Fariba Pacheleh Director, Corporate Strategic Projects at BCLDB Chair of PAC (Program Advisory Committee) at BCIT Past SCWIST President
Lino Coria, PhD Associate Teaching Professor, Northeastern University – Vancouver
Join
Donate
Volunteer
