Dr Bashir Mohammed wins the 2019 Berkeley Lab Science Research Slam and represented the Berkeley Lab to present his research to the US members of Congress at Capitol Hill in Washington DC. USA.

 

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The SLAM is a competition where contestants are challenged to present a compelling three-minute presentation of their scientific research in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience. Competitors are allowed one PowerPoint slide, but no other resources or props. The SLAM is modelled after 3 Minute Thesis and Grad Slam.

 

Out of Forty two scientists that initially entered the contest, Only Twelve finalists were selected and took to the stage to communicate their science in a clear and concise three minutes to wow the panel of judges. Dr Bashir was among the three winners announced as the 2019 Berkeley Lab Science Research Slam winners.

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Based on his performance at the Berkeley SLAM, Bashir was selected  to represent Berkeley Lab on National stage at  The IYPT Elemental Slam Event to speak about Science to the whole US legislators at Capitol Hill in Washington DC. USA.

 

The event which was organised by The American Chemical Society, in partnership with Battelle and the University of California, Berkeley was tagged an “Elemental Day on Capitol Hill” to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the periodic table of elements. The goal of the day was to highlight US Department of Energy (DOE)'s research programs and to educate legislators and their staff about the key role DOE national labs play in the nation's innovation ecosystem and their impact on the United States.

 

Six exceptional postdocs were selected from the entire US Research National Labs. Each finalist has 5 minutes and can use up to 3 slides for their presentations, which would have to be understandable to a non-scientific audience.

 

Speaking at the event, Bashir said: “I had an interesting discussion about science with some members of the congress which include Kenneth DeGraff, Senior Science and Technology Advisor to Speaker Pelosi, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Congressmen Randy Weber representing Texas and Congressman Bruce Westermann representing Arkansas. It was a great opportunity for me to discuss some of the amazing cutting-edge scientific research we are conducting at the US National labs.”

 

Bashir was born in Sokoto, Nigeria. He attended Federal Staff Primary School in Sokoto between 1987 to 1993, and the prestigious Federal Government College Sokoto State between 1994 and 2000 where he was appointed the Senior Prefect of the college (Head Boy). He proceeded to the Federal University of Technology in Minna, Niger state where he obtained a B.Eng. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2006. He then moved to the United Kingdom where he got his master's degree in Control Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield and his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Bradford.

 

Bashir joined the Scientific Data Management Group as a postdoctoral scholar on the "Large-scale Deep Learning for Intelligent Networks" project. He is currently working on enabling the design and control of intelligent networks that allow an improved response, utilization and reliability for exascale scientific workflows using machine learning approaches.

 

Watch Bashir’s interview on Capitol Hill here:

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