Pitch Your Science, Launch Your Career: People's Choice Poster Awards & the Power of Presenting at Keystone Symposia

By Emma Wabel

Each year, Keystone Symposia’s conference series serves as a nexus for life science breakthroughs, bringing together academic powerhouses and industry innovators to tackle the most pressing questions in biomedical research. Central to every Keystone Symposia meeting – and a vital mechanism for facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue – are our poster sessions. These sessions provide a relaxed and intimate platform to showcase excellent research from scientists at every career stage, sparking new innovations and collaborations. This is where unpublished science is discovered, new paradigms are discussed, and seeds of groundbreaking research directions are planted.  

In addition to driving transformative research directions, poster sessions provide unique career advancement opportunities for early-career scientists – a quintessential aspect of Keystone Symposia’s mission. For students and postdocs, presenting a poster at a Keystone Symposia conference elevates the visibility of their work to peers, potential collaborators and potential employers, while also providing critical feedback and insights into their research. See more below on the value of presenting a poster at Keystone Symposia.

Now we are offering even greater visibility, and the potential to win big, for poster presenters through the People's Choice Poster Awards across seven of our 2026 meetings! At each of the following meetings, one exceptional poster presenter will be chosen by popular vote to win complimentary registration to a 2027 Keystone Symposia meeting of their choice.  PLUS, the opportunity to win a $500 cash prize, sponsored by e184, at the Stem Cell Models in Embryology meeting in February!  

• Autoimmunity & Autoinflammation: Translating Basic Mechanisms into Novel Therapeutic Approaches (A2) 
• Stem Cell Models in Embryology (B2) – features $500 cash prize!
• RNA Modifications: Bridging Biological Function and Therapeutic Potential (C2) 
• Solute Carrier Transporters: Structure, Physiology and Pharmacology (D1) 
• Tumor Microenvironment: Identifying Drivers of Progression and Resistance (M3) / Inflammation Resolution: Emerging Concepts, Mechanisms and Disease Insights (M4) 
• Viral Pathogenesis and Immunity: From Molecular Discoveries to Therapeutics (E2) 
  

The winner will be announced by the conference organizers on the last day of the meeting, where they will be congratulated in front of the whole audience on their exceptional work – providing name recognition to colleagues and field leaders alike. Such visibility is critical for career advancement at this formative career stage. In addition, the award provides a resume-building opportunity for the winner to distinguish themselves from peers within the competitive job market and funding environment. By creating this additional opportunity for poster presenters, Keystone Symposia, together with poster award sponsors, aims to enhance career advancement outcomes and impacts from our conferences.   

Get ready to showcase your research at one of these conferences for your chance to win! 

How to Enter & Vote! 

Who is Eligible? To be considered, poster abstracts must be received by the abstract deadline, and participants must be registered for the meeting by the registration deadline. Only those presenting a poster, but not selected for a short talk, are eligible.  

Important Note: Poster Abstract Deadlines are much later than deadlines to be chosen for a short talk. This allows much more time to prepare abstracts for submission. If you have missed the short talk deadline, chances are you still have time to submit for a poster presentation! Check meeting website pages for deadlines.  

How Do I Vote?  All in-person registrants at each meeting can cast their vote via our official mobile app. Your vote helps celebrate the emerging and high-quality research presented!  

Beyond the Prize: Why Presenting a Poster at Keystone Symposia is Already a Win 

While the People's Choice Award is a great incentive to present your work, presenting a poster at a Keystone Symposia conference is already a win for anyone wishing to expand their horizons. The primary goal of the poster session extends beyond a simple presentation; it is about catalyzing collaboration, connecting with colleagues, and providing research visibility among the most influential figures in the field.  

Poster sessions provide unique opportunities to generate insightful feedback, inspire innovative ideas, connect researchers across career stages, and spark peer and mentorship relationships. Presenters gain a powerful competitive edge for their research and careers, and are particularly valuable for students, postdocs and early-stage investigators aspiring to launch their careers.

Keystone Symposia provides a safe, thoughtful, and inquisitive place for trainees in which to have their science inquired about by others. One knows that at Keystone meetings you are amongst your tribe, in a place where curiosity and questioning are encouraged.  That spirit extends to the trainees time and again. I've watched them gain knowledge and confidence from presenting their work at Keystone Symposia poster sessions.                                 

--Dr. Stephanie Watts, Professor, Michigan State University 

Unmatched Networking & Visibility

In contrast to the overwhelming atmosphere of massive society meetings, Keystone Symposia meetings are intentionally small and immersive. This intimate setting provides a unique opportunity to forge relationships that will serve you throughout your career.  

• Pitch Your Work (and Yourself!): At a poster session, you are not just presenting data; you are pitching your experience and expertise directly to academic and industrial field leaders, potential collaborators, and hiring managers.  

• Visibility That Matters: With few concurrent sessions, Keystone Symposia poster sessions provide maximum visibility for your work among the people who matter most in your field. Poster sessions readily offer focused, one-on-one time with field leaders and colleagues who are (nearly) impossible to pin down at larger meetings. Equally important, meaningful connections and conversations are made with peers who become lifetime collaborators and friends. 
  
  

Sparking Insight & Innovation 

Your poster session is a goldmine for constructive criticism, interdisciplinary insights and innovative ideas. 

• Expert Insights: Engage directly with pioneers in your field, as well as those with complimentary cross-disciplinary expertise. Receive in-depth feedback on your research to help you troubleshoot challenges, pivot your focus in a more fruitful direction, and even expand the trajectory of your research through interdisciplinary insights.  

• Interdisciplinary Collaborations: It’s here that the most valuable connections are often forged – a conversation between an industry leader and a brilliant postdoc that inspires a new experiment, or a multi-institutional collaboration born from an intriguing data point. 

Flexibility for Emerging Data 

We understand the pace of modern science is ever increasing. Poster abstract deadlines are intentionally much closer to meeting dates than the deadlines for short talk selection. This flexibility allows for more time to include late-breaking work. 

• More Time to Prepare: You get extra time to finalize that last experiment and get one last data point ready to add your abstract.  But remember, you can always edit your abstract later as well, so don’t let that hold you back from submitting! 

• Present Your Newest Findings: Bring your fresh, late-breaking data and discuss with the community. Larger meetings require polished, finished stories for submission far in advance of their meetings. Keystone Symposia celebrates research as a work in progress. Bring your research “hot off the press” to a Keystone Symposia conference and get specific, applicable advice for your current roadblocks or immediate aid in interpreting fresh results and designing future experiments from an intimate audience.  
  

The Keystone Symposia poster sessions are much more interactive and collegial compared to other conferences.  I got the chance to really talk to the experts face-to-face...to have casual conversations with people that are experts on my specific topic. I learned new techniques for analyzing single-cell RNA sequencing datasets through advice at my poster sessions.

From Keystone, I had opportunities to learn what the experts have done in their own research that I can implement in my own projects-- novel techniques and experiments that can be applied. In fact, we invited a professor we met at Keystone to come give a talk for our lab group, to help us find new ways to interpret some of our results.

 

-- C. Javier Rendon, PhD Candidate, Michigan State University 

Present your poster at Keystone Symposia to launch your career! 

Ready to showcase your research &

compete for the People's Choice Poster Award? 

Choose your meeting and submit your abstract today!  

Meet the Author

Emma Wabel