Quick Summary
- Ph.D. student pitches sustainable way of drying food
- See all Grad Slam results, including Peopleâs Choice
- Next up: Dien represents °”TV in UC Grad Slam
Watch the complete program above. Alice Dienâs winning presentation comes on at the 37:30 mark.
Biological systems engineering Ph.D. student Alice Dien won the 2022 °”TV Grad Slam with her 2-minute, 54-second presentation on her research into a new, sustainable way of drying food, âCooling Down With the New Hot Air: The Future of Drying in Agriculture.â
UC GRAD SLAM
Alice Dien will go up against the winners from the other nine UC campuses, Friday, May 6, time to be announced.
Jean-Pierre Delplanque, vice provost and dean of Graduate Studies, as master of ceremonies, opened the program with an explanation: âWhat weâve done here is challenge graduate students to take literally thousands of hours of research and compress them into three minutes ... and to make it accessible to a nonspecialist audience.â
Thirty-seven masterâs and Ph.D. students entered the campus Grad Slam by submitting video-recorded presentations (three minutes or less with no more than one slide). Volunteer faculty and staff judges reviewed the recordings in a qualifying round, narrowing the field to 10 for the campus final, held Wednesday (April 6) in Walker Hall, home of the new Graduate Center.
Six new judges chose all the winners except one, the People's Choice, decided by the audience of approximately 175 people (in person and online).
We can relate
Dien started with a question no doubt on a lot of peopleâs minds: âWho else was shocked by the price of their energy bill in January? At first I thought I had left the oven on for a week or something!
âBut then I found out that natural gas prices have almost doubled since last year. Great. First it was the gasoline, now itâs the natural gas. Do you know whatâs next? Food.â
Dien studies energy use in making food, specifically, she said, one of the most energy-intensive processes: drying.
The desiccant solution
âIf you had a cup of coffee this morning, or if youâve ever had almonds, or walnuts, or even just rice, you can thank drying,â Dien said. âWithout it, all these products would get spoiled within one week.â
She then showed a slide of packets of silica gel, a desiccant, or drying agent, often packaged with food and other products (with the warning âdo not eatâ) â explaining she is designing a system that uses desiccants to dry food cheaper and with less harm to the environment.
No drying with heat, no burning natural gas to make the heat, she said. Instead, she is drying food with what she calls, in the title of her presentation, âthe new hot air,â which is dry air made from desiccants and fans, and powering the fans with electricity generated from less carbon intensive fuels or, better yet, renewable energy like solar.
What Can I Do About Climate Change? ââ Kat Kerlin, Strategic Communicationsâ environmental science writer, blogs about Alice Dienâs winning Grad Slam presentation.
Dien not only took first place but also earned the Public Impact Prize, given by the Office of Public Scholarship and Engagement, a Grad Slam sponsor. In addition, she earned a âGlobal Education for Allâ designation from Global Affairs, recognizing the global impact of her project.
Other sponsors: Office of Research and Graduate Studiesâ GradPathways Institute for Professional Development.
The complete results
- 1st place ($2,500) and Public Impact Prize â Alice Dien, M.S., Ph.D student in biological systems engineering, College of Engineering, for âCooling Down With the New Hot Air: The Future of Drying in Agricultureâ (Global Education for All)
- 2nd place ($1,500) â Savannah Free, Ph.D. student in integrative genetics and genomics, College of Biological Sciences, for âPartners in Crime: Tumor Cells and Plateletsâ
- 3rd place ($750) â Paige Kouba, M.S., Ph.D. candidate in ecology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, for âClimate Change Time Machine: Sending Trees 50 Years Into the Futureâ (Global Education for All)
- Peopleâs Choice ($500) â Andrea Michelle Guggenbickler, M.P.H., Ph.D. student in public health, School of Medicine, for âLetâs Talk About Sex ... Educationâ
The other competitors:
- Heather Barr, Ph.D. student in public health sciences, School of Medicine â âThe Impact of Pets on the Feelings of Loneliness: Can You Pet Yourself Happy?â
- Benjamin Faulkner, Ph.D. student in geology, College of Letters and Science â âThe Salad Days of Reptiles.â
- Lindsey Felth, Ph.D. candidate in pharmacology and toxicology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences â âHow Do We Make Opioids Safer?â
- Lo-Wei Lin, M.S., Ph.D. candidate in pharmacology and toxicology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences â âLook Out! The Smoky Orange Sky Is Harmful to Your Skinâ
- William Turner IV, Ph.D. student in atmospheric science, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences â âEl Nino and the Transatlantic Slave Tradeâ (Global Education for All)
- Jiahan Zou, M.S., Ph.D. candidate in biological systems engineering, College of Engineering â âNovel Cooling Media: Cooler Than Iceâ (Global Education for All)
JUDGES FOR THE CAMPUS FINAL
- Mary Croughan (pictured), UC Davis provost and executive vice chancellor
- Andrea Flores â10, anchor-reporter, KCRA 3 Television
- DawntĂ© Early â05, M.S. '08, Ph.D. â11, president and CEO, United Way California Capital Region
- Sarah McCullough, Ph.D. â13, associate director, °”TV Feminist Research Institute
- Stacey Muse, director of engagement, °”TV Public Scholarship and Engagement
- Rinki Sethi â04, vice president and chief information security officer, Bill.com
Media Resources
Dateline Staff: Dave Jones, editor, 530-752-6556, dateline@ucdavis.edu; Cody Kitaura, News and Media Relations specialist, 530-752-1932, kitaura@ucdavis.edu.