Announcement

IUS 2021 Student Pitch Competition Winners Announced

2 years 6 months ago
Share on:

The Student Pitch Competition was held on Wednesday, 15 September during the 2021 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium. The purpose of this competition was to give students an opportunity to showcase their skills in preparing and delivering a concise summary of their research. During this live event, the participants presented their work in a one-minute rapid-fire format, visually supplemented with a single PowerPoint slide. Pitches were judged based on four primary criteria: clarity of speech, clarity of results, slide layout, and overall impression.

In total, eleven students participated in the Student Pitch Competition. A hearty congratulations to Yi Lin from the University of Toronto for winning the Best Overall Pitch Award ($100 cash prize). In addition, Honorable Mention awards ($50 cash prize) were presented to Rached Baida from the Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging, Paris, and Cameron Dockerill from King's College London. These awards were announced at the conclusion of the event, after the judges made their final determinations, and were further recognized during the Student Awards session on the final day of the IEEE IUS 2021 conference.

Best Overall Pitch: Yi Lin, University of Toronto, “A Preclinical Sparse Array for Acoustic Control of Microbubble-mediated Ultrasound Brain Therapy”

Honorable Mention: Rached Baida, Laboratory of biomedical imaging, Paris, France, “Ultrasound Multimodalities for Fatty Liver Characterization: a preclinical study”

Honorable Mention: Cameron Dockerill, King's College London, “Sensing Cardiac Pressures with Ultrasound Microbubbles”

All participants received a certificate of participation from the IEEE IUS 2021 General Co-Chairs. We are extremely grateful to the judging committee members for taking the time to listen to and evaluate each of the pitches. The IUS 2021Student Pitch Competition judges were:
●    Prof. Azra Alizad (Mayo Clinics Rochester)
●    Dr. Peter Brecht (PhotoSound Technologies Inc.)
●    Prof. Joel Harley (University of Florida)
●    Megan Jenkinson-Garner (Precision Acoustics)

Overall, the event feedback was extremely positive from the competition participants as well as other spectators, with survey respondents indicating afterward that they thought that this event should be organized in future conferences. One attendee wrote, “It is a good opportunity to share your research without needing to submit a paper. Good idea for students who are in the early stages of their research”, and another remarked that the event was also fun: “Thank you so much for hosting such a fun event!”