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UCSB has crowned its campus Grad Slam champion, and now our own Nicole Leung is off to ​participate in the UC-wide competition up in San Francisco! Find out how you can watch the event this Friday.

Wednesday, April 20th, 2016 - 10:14am

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UCSB has crowned its campus Grad Slam champion, and now our own Nicole Leung is off to ​participate in the UC-wide competition up in San Francisco this Friday! Campus champions will be competing for their share of $10,000 in prize money. Since the event is invitation-only, organizers have made a live-stream available for everyone to watch the excitement from the comfort of your home or office.

UC-Wide Grad Slam Competition

Friday, April 22
Live-stream starts at 11:30 a.m.
Click here to watch

The event will be emceed by UC president Janet Napolitano - who recently wrote an article for LinkedIn highlighting the importance of making research publicly accessible - and there is also an impressive lineup of judges:

  • Frank Somerville is the 5, 6 and 10 p.m. evening anchor at KTVU Fox 2 News in Oakland. The Berkeley native is a five-time Emmy winner and has garnered quite a following on Facebook. He now counts more than 400,000 fans on his Facebook page, where he regularly posts stories about his family, local community and the world.
  • Aimée Dorr is provost and executive vice president for academic affairs of the University of California. Prior to assuming the post in July 2012, Dorr served as dean of UCLA's Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. She has been a professor of education at UCLA since 1981, and also served on the faculty at Stanford, Harvard and University of Southern California.
  • Mike Liu is an associate at SV Angel, a San Francisco-based angel investment firm that helps startup companies with business development, financing and strategic advice. Liu joined SV Angel in 2014 from venture firm Qatalyst Partners. He graduated from Stanford with a degree in Management Science and Engineering.
  • Katie Ferrick leads Community Relations at LinkedIn, where she builds relationships and facilitates LinkedIn's participation in local programs that support the goals of the community. Previously, Ferrick served as planning commissioner for the City of Menlo Park, and deputy district director for U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier.
  • Russ Gould is a UC Regent. He is a Partner with California Strategies, LLC, Financial Services Practice. Previously, Gould has served as vice president at Wachovia Bank and the J. Paul Getty Trust, as well as director of the Department of Finance of the State of California and secretary of the Health and Welfare Agency.

The event will be part of the California Workforce of the Future Summit, presented in partnership with LinkedIn, the Bay Area Council, and the University of California. The event will take place at the new offices of LinkedIn in San Francisco.

Check out this list of finalists from each of the UC campuses:

Gary Li | UCLA
Traveling to Mars with immortal plasma rockets

Shannon Smith-Bernardin | UCSF
The sobering cost of alcohol intoxication

Kelsey Sakimoto | UC Berkeley
Rewriting evolutionary history: cyborg bacteria for high efficiency photosynthesis

Mallory Hinks | UC Irvine
The puzzling colors of climate change

Arturo Durazo | UC Merced
Long-term cancer survival: cancer beliefs, fears of recurrence, and lifestyle habits

Peter Byrley | UC Riverside
Renewable nanopower: the new age of earth abundant electronics

Michael Nayak | UC Santa Cruz
Planetary dynamics around cramped exoplanet star systems

Matthew Savoca | UC Davis
What the nose knows: smell helps explain why marine animals eat plastic

Tiffany Taylor | UC San Diego
Using "central intelligence" to fight and conquer brain tumors

Nicole Leung | UC Santa Barbara
Lighting the path from the eye to the brain