MBB Graduate Colloquium 2017

The MBB Graduate Colloquium is a full one-day event comprised of presentations from MBB undergraduate research assistants, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, so we may learn about the exciting research going on throughout our department. We encourage everyone to use this opportunity to share their recent results, practice presenting, and develop collaborations.

Event Details

Time and Place

The MBB Graduate Colloquium 2017 will take place on Monday, April 24th, 2017 at SFU's Leslie & Gordon Diamond Family Auditorium (across from the library). 

Registration starts at 9:15 AM and opening remarks are scheduled to start at 10:00 AM. See below for the full schedule. 

Registration

Tickets are now available for purchase at the MBB Office. The price is $10/ticket. Registration is open to MBB members: graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, faculty members, undergraduate researchers, and staff! The tickets include the presentations, lunch, dinner, and a drink ticket. 

Tickets for undergraduate students who are not working in a lab are given out by the MBB Student Union. These tickets only cover the presentations and lunch. Contact the MBBSU for more information. 

Food and Drinks

Coffee will be offered in the morning during registration, during lunch, and during the afternoon break. Snacks will be offered during the afternoon break as well. 

For lunch, sandwiches and wraps will be available in the venue (Diamond Family Auditorium) at 1:00 PM. Vegetarian options will be offered. Drinks will consist of a variety of coffee, pop, juice, flavoured water, and regular iced water. 

For dinner, we will host a pizza social in the TASC2 atrium on the 7000 level. Drinks and sides will be offered. Vegetarian options will be available. Unfortunately, because we had to change the dinner venue at the last minute (because the Highland Pub is closing), we were unable to obtain a liquor license to serve alcohol. Therefore, there will not be alcoholic beverages during the pizza social. We apologize about this. 

Presentations

There are three types of presentations throughout the day, each of which are judged for prizes! 

• 12-minute Talks: Give a detailed presentation of your recent experiments, results and conclusions. It is recommended to limit background information to what is necessary and allow sufficient time present experimental results. 
• 5-minute Talks: Give a brief overview of your research project. Ideal for new projects or students. It is recommended to focus on one topic or result.
• Poster Presentations: Present your results on a poster to members of the department. Posters can stay up for the entire day.

Judging and Prizes

Various faculty members and postdoctoral fellows will judge the oral and poster presentations and come to a ranked listing for each type of presentation. They will be awarded as follows. 

• 12-minute Talks
  • 1st prize: Dr. Bruce Brandhorst Graduate Prize in MBB (Approx. value: $250)
  • 2nd prize: $100
  • 3rd prize: $50
• 5-minute Talks
  • 1st prize: $50
• Poster Presentations
  • 1st prize: Dr. Bruce Brandhorst Graduate Prize in MBB (Approx. value: $250)
  • 2nd prize: $100
  • 3rd prize: $50

Abstract Submission

Restricted to MBB members. Abstract submission is not yet open Deadline for submission will be Monday, March 6th, 2017 at 11:59 PM. You must be a graduate student, an undergraduate research assistant (i.e. working in a lab), or a postdoctoral fellow in order to present at the colloquium. Make sure you're available on Monday, April 24th, 2016. The abstract word limit is 300 maximum. 

Submit here [Closed]: http://websurvey.sfu.ca/survey/267611105

Abstract Selection

We wish to give as many students and postdoctoral fellows as possible the opportunity to present their research. However, we may receive more submitted abstracts than we can reasonably fit in a single-day colloquium, even with the help of caffeine. 

Accordingly, the MBB Graduate Caucus reserves the right to have the submitted abstracts judged and ranked by faculty members and select the top candidates. Ranking will be based on the following criteria. 

• Clarity of the abstract for the target audience (i.e. the MBB Department)
• Scientific impact to the field in question
• Representation from as many labs and topics as possible
• Expected number of years until graduation (newer students have future opportunities to present)
• Number of past colloquium presentations (provide the opportunity to new students)

Schedule

The schedule is included below. You may also download a PDF version of it here. 

Speakers

Keynote speaker: Dr. Allen Day (Google Cloud/Genomics)

More Information

We will continue to update this website as we finalize the details of the event. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the caucus president on the Executive Team page. 

Acknowledgements

Donors

We would like to thank the following departments and organizations for their support of the MBB Graduate Colloquium.

• Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
• Faculty of Science
• Dean of Graduate Studies

Sponsors

We also appreciate the support we obtained from sponsors.

Silver Sponsors

Additional Sponsors