2026 AESS Student Research Symposium

This student-focused multidisciplinary event provides a forum for students across the globe to present their original research.

Our 4th symposium is in the planning stages - save the date and stay tuned for details.

If you missed the last session about planning for and applying to graduate school, you can view it on our YouTube channel.

Make clear the connection between your work and environmental studies or science;
Clearly state how your work constitutes original research, for example through primary or secondary date collection and analysis or through exploratory work used to develop a research plan; and
Keep your presentation to no more than 3-4 minutes in length. Each presenter will have a maximum of 4 minutes to present their work followed by a very brief (1-minute) Q&A, after which Q&A can continue via the zoom chat; and
Include visuals to accompany your talk, which can be in the form of a single slide showing your poster, or several slides illustrating the key points of your talk (see the Symposium site for more details and tips).

Live presentations should:

Be no more than 3-4 minutes in length (4 minutes is the maximum!)
Include visuals to accompany the talk, which can be in the form of a single slide showing your poster, or several slides illustrating the key points of your talk (see demonstration videos below for examples)
Be enabled for screen sharing in Zoom – if you have never used the “share screen” feature, we recommend you practice this in advance to ensure this feature is enabled (it may require a change in your Zoom settings that allow for screen sharing)

** The Symposium presentations will NOT be recorded.

EDIT: with apologies, due to technical issues, there are no demos available to view for 2025. Please disregard previously emailed demo link.

Start with a brief statement of the problem that your research aims to address (or “solve”)
Minimize “background” information – include only what is essential to understanding the research question(s)
Clearly identify the research question(s) – if your work had multiple questions or parts, consider discussing only one or two in your presentation to reduce time and complexity
Briefly discuss your methods in lay language so a non-expert audience with knowledge of ESS can understand
State your results – focus on the key findings and explicitly answer your RQ(s)
Briefly discuss the implications of your results and why they matter – if you have time, state the next steps in your work or what future work should do next to further understand or solve the problem

Organizers: Dr. Nirav Patel and Dr. Valerie Rountree