Have you ever found yourself talking with your aunt or uncle at a family gathering, a friend from secondary (high) school, or your rideshare driver—and you are asked the question, “So, what kind of work do you do?” You don’t want them to think, “Oh, something with plants,” right? Your work is much more important than that. How would you describe your research in a way that will be both understandable and memorable?

On the first day of the IS-MPMI Congress in Glasgow, the 2019 Ko Shimamoto Travel Awardees participated in a workshop on public communication and outreach. The goal of the workshop was to help each participant develop a 2-minute “elevator talk” that could be used to introduce a research project to a general audience. Why is it called an “elevator talk”? This type of summary is meant to be given in a short amount of time—about 2 minutes, which is the average time it takes to ride an elevator in New York City. The name is not meant to be taken literally. (An elevator ride is much shorter in many places!) Instead, it is meant to describe any kind of casual situation in which you find yourself wanting to summarize your project to someone who is not familiar with it.

The idea for the workshop was put together by Dr. Dennis Halterman and was part of a USDA-NIFA/NSF-funded research grant together with Dr. Wenbo Ma. The workshop was co-organized by Drs. Halterman, Ma, and Roger Innes. The awardees were asked to come to the workshop with drafts or outlines of their talks, and after a brief introduction and some pointers presented by Dr. Dennis Halterman (USDA-ARS, Madison, WI), awardees worked in small groups with IS-MPMI members (see below) to refine and enliven their talks. The awardees were encouraged to practice their talks (or variations of them) throughout the meeting. So, if you see a travel awardee in the hallway at work or at a future meeting, ask to hear his or her elevator talk and prepare to be fascinated.

A huge thank-you to the IS-MPMI members who helped the awardees develop their pitches during the workshop:

Andrew Bent, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Tolga Bozkurt, Imperial College, London

Eunyoung Chae, National University of Singapore

Tim Friesen, USDA-ARS, Fargo, ND

Dennis Halterman, USDA-ARS, Madison, WI

Roger Innes, Indiana University

Sophien Kamoun, John Innes Centre

Ksenia Krasileva, University of California, Berkley

Ann Lichens-Park, USDA-NIFA

Wenbo Ma, University of California, Riverside

John McDowell, Virginia Tech

Michael Mishkind, National Science Foundation

Mary Beth Mudgett, Stanford University

Sylvain Raffaele, INRA

Sebastian Schornack, University of Cambridge