7. Speaking of Science: Presenting Your Science and Yourself. Speaking and Presentation Skills for Scientists

Note: All of our workshops are sponsored by client organizations for their employees, staff or affiliates. At this time we do not offer “open enrollment” workshops. Please contact us for details.

For a few lucky scientists speaking to an audience comes naturally. For the rest of us it is an experience we face with reluctance at best and dread at worst. 

Speaking to an audience about your research or your lab is about more than the slides you show and the data you present. It is also, and at times, primarily, about how you come across to the audience—do you seem nervous or relaxed, are you looking at your audience or at your notes? How you come across can be just as important as what you say. 

Few of us ever have the opportunity to hear useful and honest feedback about what we could do to improve how we present ourselves in public. In this workshop you will learn how to relate to your audience, how to read the audience’s reaction to you and to what you’re saying and how to create a rapport with the audience that draws them into your presentation. 

During the workshop, each participant will have the opportunity to deliver a brief presentation and to receive both public and confidential feedback from the group and from the instructor. Participants will leave with a new sense of their strengths and of areas in need of improvement. 

Due to the fact that each participant gets to present a short talk to the other workshop participants there is a maximum of enrollment of 12-15 participants. 

Workshop Highlights 

· How to organize your talk so people get the message

· How people see you—feedback that you can use

· Your body language can convey more than your words

·  How to use but not over-use humor

· The ten biggest presentation mistakes

· Gaffes and blunders—to apologize or not?

· Your 3 minute pitch

· Useful feedback from the instructor and participants