Graduate Academy

The Graduate Academy represents the graduate student constituency of the Texas Academy of Science and promotes scientific interests among the colleges and universities of the State of Texas that provide opportunities for graduate research. The Graduate Academy works to support research, scientific engagement and professional development for students at the Master’s and Doctoral level. To this end, the Graduate Academy provides monetary awards to the top research proposals and oral presentations.

Graduate Research Proposal Awards:

Research awards are available for students at the Master’s and Doctoral level who submit the top three research proposals (1st = $2000, 2nd = $1500, 3rd = $1000).  Research proposals are peer reviewed and ranked and winners are announced at the banquet of the annual meeting. If you are interested in applying for this award, please follow this link and scroll to the Research Awards section for guidelines. 

 

Graduate Oral Presentation Awards:

We are pleased to announce the guidelines for the Annual Graduate Student Oral Presentation Competition to be held during the 2024 Annual Meeting to be held March 1–2 at the University of Texas Permian Basin in Odessa.

 Students at the Master’s and Doctoral level may choose to enter the Graduate Student Oral Presentation Competition, which occurs at the annual meeting. The top three oral presentations will receive monetary awards to recognize an excellent presentation over an exceptional research project ($400, $200, and $100). The competition presentations should provide results and conclusions and is not intended for research proposals outlining future projects; case studies are not eligible for consideration. To participate, graduate students should denote their interest to be considered for the competition on the form used to submit their 250-word abstract to present at the annual meeting. To be officially eligible for consideration for the Graduate Student Oral Presentation Competition, however, students must separately submit, by email, an expanded research summary (up to 1000 words) to the Graduate Academy Counselor, Travis LaDuc ([email protected]). Both the abstract and the expanded summary must be submitted by December 11th, 2023.

The expanded research summary is an opportunity for a student to highlight their research findings or methodologies that might otherwise be lost in a short abstract. Extended abstracts also provide the judging committee an additional “preview” of details that will be included in the student’s presentation. Expanded research summaries should not exceed 1000 words. Up to two tables or figures may be included. Literature citations (use Texas Journal of Science format) do not count against the word limit, but summaries over the word limit will be disqualified from the competition. The research summary should include a title, a short introduction, along with descriptions of methods, results, and conclusions. Your summary should target scientists in general, but not necessarily experts within your section. The research summary should include the student’s name, institutional address, email address, and phone number. Please include a statement that the research presented is that of the student.

A committee will review the research summaries and abstracts and up to six students may be selected for the competition. Selected applicants will be notified of their inclusion in the Graduate Student Oral Presentation Competition. Abstracts of those applicants that were not selected for the competition will be redirected to the appropriate Section Chair. Winners of the Graduate Student Oral Presentation Competition will be announced at the conclusion of the on-line meeting. Please follow this link and scroll to the Best Presentation Awards section to view the presentation judging criteria.

Travis J. LaDuc, Ph.D.
TAS Graduate Academy Counselor
Curator of Herpetology, Biodiversity Center
Department of Integrative Biology
The University of Texas at Austin
10100 Burnet Rd, PRC 176–R4000
Austin, TX 78758-4445
phone: 512-475-6339; email: [email protected]