Hello!
A vital element of a scientific career is the dissemination of our work among peers. While journal articles and books are typical ways to present our results to the community in a rather unidirectional fashion, conferences and congresses surge as lively events to gather scientists and foster active discussions on the latest advances in the field. I am pleased to share that from 12th to 14th of July, I participated in my first conference as a Doctoral student, the Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics, organised by Politecnico di Milano, in Italy. Given that the pandemic is still preventing safe travel between countries, this year’s edition took place virtually (for the first time in the history of the ESB Congress). Still, in this post, I would like to share four takeaways from my experience.
1. Diversity can spark creativity
2. Mentorship can be impactful
Diversity can spark creativity
First, I was amazed by the number of presentations available. In this Congress, abstracts are submitted for assessment in January, and the reviewers select which ones are eligible for a Poster or a Podium presentation on a variety of tracks that categorise different areas of research. Since it was an online event, Posters were presented as 2-minutes flash presentations (coupled with an extended poster version in a PowerPoint-like format), and Podium talks were 8-minutes long.
There were almost 700 presentations split across this 3-day event, hosted across multiple sessions on Microsoft Teams. Presenters could showcase their work and have a discussion right after based on questions from the audience. I was genuinely astonished by the variety of research projects presented and how people used similar tools for entirely different applications. Furthermore, following up with questions right after their talk or via the chat function was a very convenient way to get immediate clarifications or light up an exciting discussion about some of the work. In my case, I found the talks related to imaging and deep learning applications particularly relevant, as they helped me to learn about novel tools and resources used to carry out such studies. At the same time, it was utterly gratifying to discover something completely new while attending talks related to topics outside my primary domain of interest. Ultimately, I believe being exposed to such diversity gave me inspiration and perspective for my project.
Mentorship can be impactful
Next, I would like to highlight some of the side activities that complemented the main programme, and I found particularly relevant: a session that discussed and compared the academic and industry career paths and the mentorship sessions that paired two to three graduate students with an experienced researcher and promoted a constructive conversation about work and life. I took part in both events and was particularly excited to hear the perspectives of all speakers.
Regarding the discussion “academia VS industry”, I especially enjoyed the panel selection, which included professors in different career stages (recently appointed to full professors), giving a glimpse at what an academic career looks like at those time-points. Furthermore, on the industry side, the speaker had completed a doctoral degree, which allowed him to make a fair comparison between both worlds. Overall, it was great to hear about the paths of established researchers, their successes and struggles, and insightful tips related to work-life balance and topics to keep in mind as we progress in our (doctoral) journey.
At the same time, the mentorship sessions allowed to get a closer contact to individual researchers working in our field and learn about their work and career path. Since these meetings were limited to a couple of students, it allowed all participants to share their perspectives and concerns in the discussion.
Practice is crucial
I had the opportunity to give a Podium and a Poster presentation. Although the organisers requested pre-recorded presentations, preparing the material was very valuable, as it allowed me to identify good practices to improve the clarity of slides while including the core results I wanted to present. From a technical perspective, it also taught me good techniques to record myself with good quality. Our group had a simulation round before the submission date, which was an additional opportunity to practice and get constructive feedback on our work.
Despite having pre-recorded presentations, the follow-up discussion was live, and for me, it was the first time in such a circumstance at an international level. The audience could either ask questions via chat or by directly speaking to the presenters. As expected, questions via chat were usually easier to answer, and it highlighted the importance of having all relevant details of our work nearby. Since the audience has various backgrounds, even a computational project (such as mine) could receive questions with a biological focus (e.g., aiming specifically on the experimental study that generated the dataset analysed). All in all, it became clear to me that preparing a brief note with links to relevant papers and details of the experimental work was extremely valuable to be ready to answer such questions. Furthermore, I believe that being able to quickly share relevant articles or links while replying to a question shows a level of readiness that is likely appreciated by the audience.
A sense of community
Finally, I was genuinely amazed by the sense of unity in the whole event. It was a chance to attend presentations from notorious researchers in the field (and link a face to the name seen on many papers read) and interact with them in all discussions and Q&A sessions. Specifically, presenting our work to peers working on similar topics and getting immediate feedback is really empowering and, I would say, quite challenging to recreate in other circumstances. Ultimately, participating in this event brings a sense of collective effort to advance our field that is utterly fulfilling.
Conclusion
These are some of the aspects I sincerely appreciated in my first Conference. Overall, it was a very positive experience, and I am looking forward to participating in person (hopefully) next year. Please feel free to share your thoughts on such congresses and, if you have attended one before, what were your main takeaways.
Have a great day!