Research Competitions

Lightning Talks

Lightning Talks at USF are a fast-paced, community-building format that spotlights postdoctoral scholar research, sparks interdisciplinary conversation, and makes research accessible to students, colleagues, and the wider campus community.

Lightning Talks at the University of South Florida are an annual event featuring brief, engaging research presentations hosted by the Office of Graduate Studies and the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. The series was initiated in Fall 2024 in conjunction with the university's Research Month, when faculty were invited to speak for five minutes each about their current research. The effort proved so popular that it became a regular, ongoing series. 

The format is intentionally concise — each presenter distills their research into a short, accessible talk, using only a few graphical slides, making complex academic work digestible for a broad audience. Presentations span a range of disciplines, from engineering, public health, goesciences, education implementation, and behavioral science.

University of South Florida's 2026 Lightning Talks will take place in the Fall of 2026 in tandem with the 3MT finals on the Tampa campus.

Workshops for slide design, presentation preparation, practice/feedback:

• Registration: TBA
• Workshop Slide Prep: TBA
• Workshop Presentation Prep: TBA
• Practice/Feedback: TBA

1st Place (Tied)

• Kelly Navas
  • Title: Small Change Big Impact 
  • College of Education
  • Department: Center for Research, Evaluation, Assessment and Measurement
• Yu Zeng
  • Title: The Mystery of Ballistic Tongues: nature’s hidden catapults 
  • College of Arts & Sciences
  • Department: Integrative Biology

People's Choice

• Yongxiang Li
  • Title: Paternal behavior is controlled by preoptic Trpc5 neurons
  • Morsani College of Medicine
  • Department: Psychiatry & Behavioral Neurosciences

USF World Winner

• Ana Paula Rodrigues
  • Title: Diet quality in a diverse sample of pediatric cancer survivors with overweight/obesity: A cross-sectional comparison with the general population 
  • College of Behavioral & Community Sciences
  • Department: Child & Family Studies