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Group Technical Meetings

Created July 12, 2025

The ability to effectively communicate complex concepts and thoughtfully engage with criticism often determines whether our research ideas gain traction. Our research group holds regular technical meetings to train these skills. Beyond just sharing research progress, these meetings create a space to develop intellectual generosity and critical thinking—skills that extend beyond any single research project. Our format has evolved over the years, and we currently use the following approach.

Goals

Our overarching goal with these meetings is to foster a continuing academic conversation, where group members bring new ideas and the group collectively discusses opportunities for improvement and advancement of the work.

For the speaker, the meeting provides an opportunity to practice explaining ideas, and preparing for the talk helps clarify their thinking. During the presentation, the speaker receives feedback on both content and style. This can help advance the research, and ensure that future talks avoid identified pitfalls. When group members present externally, internal practice ensures that their presentation is very refined, they understand how the audience is likely to react, they know what parts require extra care to explain, and know what questions are likely to arise.

For audience members, these meetings allow engagement with others' work. Younger or prospective students learn about the research happening in our group, while all members become more aware of the details of each other's projects. This awareness maximizes opportunities for collaboration and assistance. The meetings also help everyone develop the habit of listening critically to research presentations and asking insightful questions.

By regularly practicing both presenting and critiquing, group members build intellectual muscles. Former group members often report that these meetings built their the ability to communicate clearly and respond constructively to criticism, which became as valuable to their careers as the technical expertise they developed.

Format

Ideally, a senior group member or two handles the meeting logistics–identifying a meeting time, reserving a room, managing a Google Doc for presentation sign-ups, and recruiting speakers if needed. This gives the students practice with meeting organization, and keeps the advisor from being a point of failure in the process.

Presentations

We aim to have all group members present quarterly, creating regular opportunities for feedback. Presentations on in-progress work and specific challenges that might benefit from group discussion are preferred to formal summaries of completed work.

Presenters should think carefully about their research objectives and key results, and make their presentation materials readable, but not agonize over minor details. Group discussion will inevitably lead to changes and refinements, so the presentation is effectively a rough draft for soliciting feedback rather than a polished final product. This approach may vary if someone has a near-final conference presentation they want to practice, but the point is that the group presentation is a means to an end rather than a research product itself.

We aim to use less than half the allotted time slot for the formal presentation, to provide plenty of time for questions. A one-hour meeting with a thirty-minute presentation, or a 90-minute meeting with two presentations, works well. Energy and attention will lag if the meeting goes much longer.

After two decades of group meetings, the presentations I remember most vividly aren't the ones with perfect slides, but those that sparked the most vigorous discussions. This is a compelling reminder that engagement matters more than polish.

Participants

All active research group members participate in this meeting, and we welcome other interested students and faculty members if they commit to attending regularly and being active contributors. A diverse audience challenges presenters to make their work accessible without sacrificing rigor. Meanwhile, younger participants learn not just technical content but also how to contribute meaningfully to scholarly discussions. Having at least five audience members helps foster conversation, but more than 20 participants creates the feeling of a formal talk rather than a conversation.

We hold in-person-only meetings . Hybrid meetings can facilitate traveling participants, but often cause distracting technology problems and create a more stilted discussion. So we have prioritized the spontaneity and engagement of in-person interaction rather than maximizing the number of participants.

Questions and Discussion

Start the discussion with younger members’ questions and clarifications of confusing points. This helps the speaker identify parts of the talk that were unclear to those with less background knowledge. If we start with detailed technical issues from senior students, younger students find participation difficult and we miss the opportunity to learn from their impressions and questions.

Useful topics to consider for questions include: Were there parts of the presentation that were hard to follow? Did the speaker draw any conclusion that without providing a justification? Are there opportunities to extend the presented research in interesting directions, such as applying the methods to other data sets or exploring different experimental approaches?

Presentation Topics

While individual research updates form the core of these meetings, we also incorporate other topics. We schedule practice sessions for upcoming external presentations, so presenters get feedback before conference talks or thesis defenses. We also use these meetings to discuss general research skills and tools, such as the topics covered on my Advice page. We show demos of tools, data sets, or other resources that might be useful for multiple group members. After workshops, conferences, or field work, participating members can report back key insights to benefit the rest of the group. We also sometimes host presentations from visitors to campus. Many topics are possible, as long as they address our overarching goal of fostering a continuing academic conversation.

Conclusion

Research presentation meetings build both individual and collective capabilities. They help participants become more confident presenters and sharper critical thinkers, help everyone benefit from the group’s collective wisdom, and create a shared intellectual culture and community.