Alexander Terenin is a PhD student in the Department of Mathematics.

What was it like preparing for, and talking at, the annual FoNS Research Showcase?

It was very exciting, because it was one of the first opportunities I’ve had to to present my work to a general rather than specialist audience. On the day of the Showcase, I got asked a question by the audience after I'd finished presenting, which I was happy to answer.

Why are opportunities like this important?

I think it’s important because it gives us the chance to speak about our techniques in a less technical setting, which challenges us to present better to a general audience that might not be aware of the technical terminology. This is an important skill for mathematical scientists to develop.

Got any helpful advice for fellow students about giving an academic talk?

One of my best bits of advice is that, if one is using slides, to not use bullet points at all, and use text as little as possible. A lot of mathematical talks tend to be given this way because they are technical, but I believe those should be given as chalk talks and not as slides. For a general audience, slides and pictures often better help to illustrate the ideas.

Watch Alex's Showcase talk

Alexander Terenin: Efficiently sampling functions from Gaussian process posteriors

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