Instructions for Flash Talks and Poster

Flash Talks

Flash talk presentations are strictly limited to 3 minutes. The time is fixed, and you must conclude your presentation as soon as the 3-minute limit is reached.

The Flash Talk is a concise, engaging presentation designed to introduce your research to a broad audience and spark interest. In this brief format, you will highlight your key findings and significance of your research to the field. The talk will serve as a pitch of your research to be explored in detail during the subsequent Poster Session, in which conference participants can engage in in-depth discussions.

Some guidelines for your slides:

  • Include your poster number on your slides to help us locate you easily in the poster session.
  • Clearly introduce the problem and your hypothesis, but don’t reveal the entire story—save that for the poster session.
  • There’s no limit to the number of slides you can use, but keep in mind that you’ll be stopped after 3 minutes. (Remember, quality over quantity!)
  • Use a font size of at least 18pt, and ensure your images are large enough to be visible from the back of the room.

Presenters are instructed to:

  • Save presentations in widescreen 16×9 format. To change your presentation to 16×9 go to the “Design” tab, open  the “Slide Size” drop down, choose “Widescreen 16:9”.  If the “Widescreen 16:9” option is not available in the drop down, select “Page Setup” and manually enter 16 inch width and 9 inch height.
  • Save your file as a “.pptx” and label it with your session number, last name and first name separated by and underscore, as follows: “Session#_Last_First.pptx”. Example: Session1_Smith_John.
  • Please DO NOT save your presentation as a “PDF”.
  • If you are using a video in your presentation, we ask that you give us the video files as well. You can embed the video yourself, but please have the technicians check your video embedding.

You must bring your PowerPoint presentation on a USB device to the technicians in the conference room a minimum of 4 hours prior to the start of your session. If you are presenting in the morning sessions, you must check in the previous day or as early as possible in the morning.

Poster Dimensions & Format

Please print your poster in a A0 vertical format measuring 118.9 × 84.1 cm.

The top of the printed poster should include the title, author(s), and institution(s). The lettering for this section should be at least 2.5 cm in height. Charts, drawings, and other illustrations might be similar to those you would otherwise use in preparing slides but should be more heavily drawn and appropriately shaded where possible.

A clear statement regarding the rationale and/or specific aims of the study should be stated and followed by an adequate description of the materials and methods. The results should be presented in several tables and/or graphs and should support the rationale for the study and the conclusions. It is very helpful to have a succinct conclusion.

You must mount your poster in the designated poster room before your scheduled poster session.

Further information will follow regarding the format of the poster sessions. Stay tuned.