Environmental Science MS
ENSCI Students Place at CSUMB Grad Slam
CSUMB recently hosted its first annual Grad Slam - a campus-wide competition for the best short oral research presentation by a graduate student.
Based on the internationally popular “Three Minute Thesis”, the CSUMB Grad Slam was open to any CSUMB graduate student with a significant research project to present on. Participants represented a wide range of research areas including science, social science, and humanities. During the competition, graduate students were judged by a panel based on their ability to successfully engage a non-specialist audience while communicating key details about their research in three minutes or less with just a single PowerPoint slide.
The Environmental Science master's program (ENSCI) was well represented by several graduate students during this competition. Most notably, two ENSCI graduate students were chosen as winning recipients at the end of the competition.
Second Place Winner
Connie Machuca
"Save Our Streams: A Microscopic Solution to Pollution"
"My CSUMB grad slam presentation focused on bioreactors, a system used by researchers at CSUMB to reduce pesticide concentrations from agricultural runoff with the pesticide remediating bacteria. Bioreactors could help reduce the negative effects of pesticides on human health and the environment."
People's Choice Winner
Rebecca L. Roberts
"Mice Everywhere! Rethinking Food Safety and Water Quality Management within the Salad Bowl of the United States"
"The presentation was centered around my thesis research, which involves comparing rodent and amphibian communities within agricultural ditches composed of bare ground, designed and managed vegetation, and unmanaged vegetation to assess whether ditches designed for reduced seed production reduce abundance of local wildlife populations, and thus reduce risks to food safety. "
Congratulations to Connie & Rebecca for their winning presentations!