EFI Futures Outstanding Student Presentation Award

Overview

This award is given to promote, recognize, and reward an outstanding student presenter and provided valuable feedback to student presenters on their research and presentation skills.  Students presenting both Posters and Oral Presentations are eligible for this award. In addition to being recognized for their outstanding work, award winners received $50 to spend at the EFI shop.

The EFI Futures Outstanding Student Presentation Award was first developed for the EFI 2022 Virtual Conference.  The criteria and process were based on the ESA Lotka-Volterra and AGU Outstanding Student Presentation Awards (OSPA) awards.

Find information below about:

Award Criteria

Presentation and Visuals

  1. Are slides (oral presentations), or graphics and layout (poster presentations), clear, readable, and comprehensible, with the appropriate degree of complexity?
  2. Are tables or figures used effectively?
  3. Are the main points, conclusions, and interpretations developed and integrated in a logical fashion?
  4. Is the speaker able to articulate the ideas in a clear manner?

Scientific Approach

  1. Does the study show originality and creativity? 
  2. Is related work recognized where appropriate?
  3. Does the presenter display knowledge and understanding of the study topic?
  4. Are the design and methods appropriate and adequate for the purpose of the study?  
  5. Are statistical procedures and/or computational methods used correctly?
  6. Are conclusions based on presented results?

Information for Volunteer Reviewers

We look for 2-3 Reviewers per student presentation and ask that Reviewers sign up for at least two presentations.  However, Reviewers are welcome to sign up to review more than two presentations!

We ask that Reviewers not sign up for presentations where they have a conflict of interest with the presenter such as a student from their institution or one that they are acquainted with.

The Award Criteria will be based on a 0-5 score for each of the Presentation and the Scientific Approach items listed above and the overall score. Before future Conferences, the Conference organizing committee will reach out to potential judges with further instructions and to assign talks and poster to review.

EFI 2024 Conference Award Results

Gabrielle Koerich (University of Canterbury) won for her oral presentation, “Modelling bryophyte distributions in Antarctica: unveiling the influence of water availability, sampling bias, and spatially complex dynamics”

Nima Farchadi (San Diego State University) won for his poster “Integrating diverse data for robust species distribution models in a dynamic ocean.”

Details about Gabrielle and Nima’s presentations can be found here.

EFI 2022 Conference Award Results

Whitney Woelmer (Virginia Tech) won for her poster “Undergraduate student confidence and understanding of ecological forecasting concepts significantly increases after completing a Macrosystems EDDIE module.”

Yiluan Song (University of California, Santa Cruz) won the award for her presentation on “Ecological forecasting of leafing and flowering phenology during climate change to inform public health”. 

Details about Yiluan and Whitney’s presentations can be found here.

.