The 3rd ACS Taiwan Chapter Graduate Student Conference
May 05 2018 at Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University
Organizer:
ACS Taiwan Chapter
Co-organizers:
Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University
Chinese Chemical Society located at Taipei
Organizing Committee:
Prof. Jye-Shan Yang (Chair, National Taiwan University)
Prof. Ching-Wen Chiu (Co-Chair, National Taiwan University)
Ms. Michelle Liu (Conference secretary, National Taiwan University)
Sponsors:
ACS Chemical Abstracts Service
ACS Publications Division
iGroup Taiwan
Eternal Materials
Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University
Award Selection Committee:
Physical Chemistry Division
Prof. Yuan-Chung Cheng (National Taiwan University)
Prof. Liang-Yan Hsu (Academia Sinica)
Prof. Ming-Kang Tsai (National Taiwan Normal University)
Organic Chemistry Division
Prof. Teruo Shinmyozu (National Taiwan University)
Prof. Shih-Sheng Sun (Academia Sinica)
Prof. Po-Shen Pan (Tamkang University)
Analytical and Bio Chemistry Division
Prof. Wei-Ssu Liao (National Taiwan University)
Prof. Chih-Hsin Chen (Tamkang University)
Prof. Chang-Kang Chiang (National Dong-Hwa University)
Inorganic Chemistry Division
Prof. Kien Voon Kong (National Taiwan University)
Prof. Po-Heng Lin (National Chung Hsing University)
Prof. Yi-Hsin Liu (National Taiwan Normal University)
Statistics:
89 students, 17 professors, 3 representatives of sponsors
Description:
The annual ACS Taiwan Chapter Graduate Student Conference was held on May 5th 2018, the first Saturday of May. The purpose of the conference is to provide a platform for graduate students from chemical science-related departments or research institutions to practice scientific presentation in English, to encourage collaboration, and to promote chemical research in Taiwan. This year, 89 student participants from 13 universities attended the conference and dedicated 36 oral presentations and 41 posters. To motivate and encourage students, we have also invited 12 professors from 6 research institutions to evaluate student performance on scientific presentation of their research accomplishment.
After the opening remarks by Prof. Jye-Shane Yang, the scientific program began at 9:30 am. 36 students were divided into four parallel sections according to their field of study. Each oral presentation includes 15 minutes of talk and 5 minutes of Q&A. Besides, two one-hour poster sections were combined with the morning and afternoon coffee breaks to foster more relaxed environment for communications. Afterward, two educational plenary lectures were delivered. The 30 minutes lecture from ACS Chemical Abstracts Service on “作研究，不要再靠Google” taught students how to effectively utilize the database. One the other hand, Dr. Marc Anthony from the Academic Writing Education Center at NTU delivered a 90-minutes lecture entitled “From Paper to Podium: Communicative Strategies for Publication and Presentation”. In this lecture, Dr. Anthony summarized presentation strategies that keep the audience engaged, and listed some common mistakes that unattractive speakers tend to make. This lecture is so successful that we had to interrupt the Q&A section to keep the conference on schedule.
The award ceremony was scheduled after the plenary lecture of Dr. Anthony. The referees selected 4 Outstanding Oral Presenters, 8 Excellent Oral Presenters, 4 Outstanding Poster Presenters, and 7 Excellent Poster Presenters out of the 77 student participants. Every awardee received an Award Certificate and gift voucher provided by ACS Taiwan Chapter. In addition, ACS Chemical Abstracts Service also sponsored gifts for 3 Most Popular Posters, which were determined by student voting. Finally, Prof. Yang and Prof. Chiu gave the closing remarks to conclude the successful conference.
In addition to the regular one-day program of the graduate student conference, a special workshop entitled “Chemistry to Multidisciplinary Knowledge: to curate-engage-influence” was held in the afternoon of May 4th at NTU to kick-start the event. Dr. Woei Fuh Wong, the general manager of consulting of iGroup Singapore, helped students walk through and practice the logic of scientific presentation in this three-hours workshop. In this workshop, students not only listened to the lecture of Dr. Wong, but also got the chance to exercise how to introduce their own research to a wide spectrum of audiences. At the end of the workshop, students were asked to utilize those concepts in designing an eye-catching poster to advertise their research. Since there were only 12 participants, everyone gets the chance to interact with Dr. Wong. Students’ responses to the workshop are all very positive. Therefore, if possible, such pre-conference workshop should be continued next year.