Attending my first APS conference (DPP)

[TaylorRatliff]

In one week I'll be flying to Chicago with my group to attend my first APS conference, the APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP).

This is a pretty critical moment in my academic career, as I'm a senior undergraduate in the process of applying for graduate school, and I want to make a good impression on potential graduate advisors.

I was wondering if anyone had any general advice on approaching professors, common mistakes in presenting a poster, etc.

I also have a specific question about a mistake I might have made - I submitted my abstract to the poster session my research is relevant to instead of the undergraduate/high school poster session. At the time I didn't realize the undergrad session existed. I'll speak with my professor about it on Monday, but I'm also interested in hearing PF's opinion.

For those interested, my research is in laser-driven ion acceleration. Extremely intense lasers (Petawatt) interacting with very thin films (~100nm) can accelerate protons up to useful energies (hundreds of MeV, at least in theory). Here's the paper the professor I work for recently published, which was submitted around the time I joined the group. http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v105/i6/e065002

 

[Choppy]

I wouldn't worry about submitting the poster as you did. There's nothing wrong with submitting it by topic.

The only possible disadvantage I could see is that sometimes there are competitions for student posters and by not submitting to the student division you likely won't be entered into the competition if there is one. Along these lines, it may not be too late to contact the administrators of the conference and ask if your session could be changed for this purpose because even an honourable mention in these competitions can bolster a grad school application. If there's no competition though, I wouldn't worry about it.

There are generally two types of poster presentations: moderated and non-moderated. In the moderated session, you are essentially giving a talk about your poster to a cluster of interested folks, so if you end up in a session like this, it's important to prepare something to say.

In the non-moderated sessions, you have a block of time, generally an hour or two, where you will stand by your poster as people are free to wander by. Often there are drinks and snacks, which help to make the atmosphere a little more informal and social. In these situations, it's still a good idea to be prepared to give a quick oral summary of your poster to anyone interested.

Make sure that you can explain:
- why you were interestest in this problem
- your general methodology and why you chose it
- limitations to your study
- your figures
- your significant conclusions

Don't be afraid to tell people you're still an undergrad.

Be aware that some people like to critique posters and will try to challenge you with questions. Try as best you can to answer any questions, but it's okay if you don't have direct answers in the moment.

It can be a good idea to have a "business card" handy to hand out to people with your contact information on it. This helps tremendously with networking. Also, be prepared to write down other peoples' names and email addresses etc either on paper or into your phone/Blackberry.

Finally, I might just add that you have a pretty hot topic. Laser proton acceleration is of extreme interest in the medical physics community because if anyone can get it to work and into production it would mean a much cheaper alternative to the current ~$100M proton facilities and provide a major advantage over conventional radiotherapy treatments as a result of the Bragg peak energy deposition characteristics of protons over photons.

 

[TaylorRatliff]

Thanks for the advice, Choppy!

I've emailed APS about it, my concern is that potential graduate advisors from a much broader range of topics in plasma physics will be at the undergraduate session, and if I'm not presenting there I will lose opportunities to make an impression.

Upon browsing the APS' website, I found the person I need to get a hold of is an administrator at my own institution, so I'll I sent her an email too and I'll drop by her office tomorrow and get this straightened out!

I'm planning on letting people know I'm an undergrad. At this point I feel my success should be measured in how much I have learned as opposed to the progress I have made in the field.

I welcome the questions, and doing theory in this field is likely to bring some challenging ones. Right now the experiments are not agreeing well with the (overly optimistic) analytic or computational (particle in cell simulations) work. Though my work is in a regime not yet accessible to experimentalists, as the high powered lasers needed are not yet capable of circular polarization.