Hi everyone. How you doing? Oh thank you. Can you say that one more time? Oh good. Yes it’s Dr. Annie from now on everyone. I spent five years working toward that. I’m so excited to be here and see new faces and old faces and be back in a space where we all get to be surrounded by people who go to bed and wake up thinking about how to do their work better. We are with our people and that feels really good. And the work that we do is hard. It requires empathy and flexibility and humility and constant constant learning. Whether you are a scientist studying how the human mind works or you are a strategist deciding which direction you should take an organization. That feels pretty familiar. But here in this room and at the Center for Public Interest Communications we believe that all of this work should be rooted in the best of what we know from academic research. As Anne Cristiano would say, academic research is the greatest tool nobody’s using. So we need to be using that, okay? The other piece is that we really believe that if we’re going to build the academic discipline of public interest communications that the research questions need to be rooted in the experiences of those on the front line answering the questions that you have. So to build that bridge we have spent the last now six years bringing academic researchers to the Frank stage. We’ve heard from brilliant minds like Julia Frostino. Yes. I love you so much. Julia looks at comedy and crisis communication and is a queen. We heard from Jeff Niderdepe who studies narrative and inoculation and how we can use those strategies to communicate about social determinants of health. We heard from Hannah Shepard who studies social network mapping and social norms and how we leverage those things to change behavior. We heard from Chelsea Shine who found that our gut intuition and when we feel harm that shapes how we react to information. We’ve heard from incredible, incredible scientists on the Frank stage so many that I can’t list them all. But you can go find their videos on our website. And what makes me so happy is that we now the center has gotten to work with a number of organizations and I’m hearing their work cited in conversations and in proposals which means that academic research is leaving the ivory tower and is now being put into practice which is awesome. Especially because here at the University of Florida we kind of think of scientists like rock stars. We wait for the release of their latest paper like you might wait for the release of your favorite artists album, right? Or nerds and we love that. And we wanted you to love the scientists as much as we do. So about three years ago we launched our science show, Seven Minutes in Heaven with a Scientist, because everyone is a little bit curious. Yes, and it’s a magical experience that we will get to experience again over the next few weeks. I’ve had the luxury of hosting the show, but this year we decided to pass on the title of resident science nerd to somebody new. So I’m here to introduce you to your new resident science nerd. She loves research as much as I do. She constantly is thinking about how we can bring research into practice. She is part of the Frank Price family and she will take us on our science journey over the next few days. So everyone let’s welcome Erica Seizig. Thank you. So I have to anoint you. That’s just how things go in this business. So I made you something. As you do. Yeah, I’m really good at crafts. Hold on. Yeah, dramatic moment of silence. Black is taking an ante. Yeah, I see it. Five. What is it, Annie? So to anoint you, we thought we would bestow you with a Frank bow tie. Wonderful. That’s great. So you’re going to put it on for me? Yes. With great power comes great responsibility. So I have to nail or anything like that? Great. Okay. Oh. So as your first act of duty as the new nerd. Yes. Why don’t you introduce us to our research finalists? Absolutely. Let me find my right piece of paper. All right. Thank you. Welcome back and welcome to Frank 2019. I’m excited to be taking over the research prize competition. And so over the next several days, we will get the opportunity to hear from three dynamic individuals whose research we are featuring here and who will be competing for the price. Part producer, part strategist, part academic, Katie Borum-Chattoux is the director of the Center for Media and Social Impact and assistant professor at the American University School of Communication. Katie studies the connection between comedy, media and social justice. This year she will present her research with Dr. Laura Feldman on how comedy can bring issues to people, how comedy can bring people to issues facing refugees. Our second candidate, our second participant, our competitor is Shom Mazumadar. Shom wants to know if mass protests work. When and why? As a PhD candidate in government at Harvard University, Shom uses history and data science to map social movement protests and the long term impact on institutions and how we see one another. All right. Candidate number three, we know that to reach people’s hearts, hearts and minds, we have to tell emotion driven stories. But not all emotions are alike. Dr. Jeremy Yip, assistant professor of management at Georgetown, studies the science of emotions. He will share with us the science of anger, what it does to us and how to use it. We look forward to meeting our finalists tomorrow, but there’s a lot more researchers here in the room with us that can offer a lot of brilliant insight over the next couple of days. This afternoon, we want you guys to join us in what we are calling the World’s Shortest Academic Conference, where we hope to share ideas across practitioners and scholars where we can work on building space together and building bridges together and solving the problems that bring us to this conference this year. Great. So look out for Katie and Shomen Jeremy, ask them questions. We are voting on Friday for your top paper, top interview, because you will be sitting down and interviewing them tomorrow. And on Friday, you will vote by paper. So pay attention. You will be tested later. Great. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. I know. Wow. I thought you were going to give her this as a crown of thorns. It was super weird.