Listening to chalk talks this past week was really interesting- hearing about everyone’s projects and the fascinating work that my peers do was quite engaging. However, one chalk talk that I really enjoyed was Rachel’s. Her project focuses on reading and analyzing ECGs in hopes of finding a good way of detecting atrial fibrillation (AF), even when someone’s heartbeat is at a “normal” state. I thought it was intriguing that she found that an ECG of a person with AF doesn’t really have quite the same reading even in their normal state than an ECG of someone without AF.
Additionally, I think that using MATLAB and other mathematical methods to analyze ECGs is really cool. I’ve always been interested in the intersection of science and math, and Rachel’s project showed a good example of that. It was interesting how graphing particular aspects of an ECG could show such a disparity between normal hearts and hearts with AF, even if at first glance the ECGs may look pretty much the same.
Not only was the content of Rachel’s project interesting, but the presentation itself was very good. I thought she used the board very well, and was very clear in articulating her ideas. Even if she had to gloss over a lot of the methods she used, it was a good example of how to express ideas without going into too much technical details.
Overall, I think the chalk talks were a great way to practice our presentation skills. They were also a fantastic venue for which we could all learn about everyone’s research. Hopefully at the end of the program, we’ll see how they all turn out!
