For Researchers Preparing Conference Presentations,
Job Talks or Pitches
The PresentBetter Program
Your Lab's Research Reputation Travels With Every Talk
When your graduate students present well, hiring committees, funders, and collaborators notice. When they don't, it reflects on your training. The PresentBetter Program is being built to systematize quality so excellence becomes automatic. In the end, everyone benefits.
Banda Khalifa, MD, MPH, MBA
Physician Epidemiologist, Johns Hopkins University
I had the privilege of witnessing Andy's exceptional seminar on public speaking at Johns Hopkins. Andy showcased a profound grasp of confident public speaking and demonstrated a commendable ability in scientific communication. The resources he provided were invaluable, and I wholeheartedly recommend Andy for any endeavor that seeks to blend the art of public speaking with scientific precision and passion.
Gala True, PhD
Professor, Tulane University
Andy is a genius at helping academics and researchers create better presentations and become better presenters in the service of their work. I have worked with Andy twice. He helped me transform both the slides and presentation from a stiff, typical academic talk into a compelling story. He also imparted tips and tricks about creating and giving presentations that I'll be using for the rest of my career.
David O. Prevatt
Professor, University of Florida
As a structural engineering professor, I’d long spoken within the familiar walls of my discipline. With Andy’s help I’ve challenged myself to reframe complex engineering for a broader audience, blending rigor with narrative to spark genuine engagement. If you want to elevate your presentations—whether it’s a conference keynote or a public forum—Andy is the one to help you find your authentic voice and make every word count.
Eleonore Fournier-Tombs, PhD
Head of Anticipatory Action and Innovation, United Nations
His training was incredibly empowering and I went from being nervous and a little bland to feeling quite confident. We learned a combination of general principles and specific techniques that I continue to draw upon in my presentations and lectures now. I would highly recommend him to anyone who wishes to work on speaking with passion.
Chris Buddle
Professor and Associate Provost, Academic Office, McGill University
Andy was easy to work with, critical and helpful - constructive in a supportive way. If you're considering working with Andy, go for it!
What Other Professors say...
You might train 50 grad students over your career. This program was built by training that many scientists per month for 10 years, across dissertation defenses, 3-minute thesis competitions, job talks, and grant pitches.
We’ve established a repeatable 5-step workflow that scaffolds presentation development with built-in structure: core message clarity → outline approval → key visuals → full-length practice → final sign-off. At each step, automated feedback forms guide peers toward giving more useful input (not just "talk slower" or "can you go back to your methods slide, I think I missed something").
You have more valuable ways to spend your time than figuring out how to teach trainees presentation skills.
Here's the problem: you're a strong presenter, but training others to present well is a different skill. Most of what you do is tacit knowledge—you can do it, but you can't always teach it. And even if you could articulate every framework, you don't have the time, energy, or sample size to build a scalable system.
You get a dashboard that shows real-time progress for every student in your lab. You see where they are in the workflow, how much time they've spent on each module, and what feedback they've received. You intervene strategically, not reactively.
The frameworks you use instinctively—how to earn credibility, trigger curiosity, design slides for comprehension—are now explicitly taught. Your students stop depending on you to explain the same principles every semester. They learn the system once and apply it forever.
They now have a purposeful, 5 step iterative process. It's automated, with guided peer feedback and built-in approval by you at each step of the development path. From key information to a 5 step outline to a 5 minute short version of their full talk, they build from a solid foundation. The process ensures a focused, purposeful, tight presentation that will make you proud they represent your lab and will help open doors for their career.
You tell students to start prep early.
They procrastinate.
You tell them to focus on the most important result.
They struggle to find a concise message.
You tell them to keep their visuals relatively simple and clear.
They build complicated and near impossible to quickly understand ones instead.
You dedicate lab meeting time for practice talk feedback.
Peers end up focusing feedback on the wrong things.
You then meet one on one with them to give the feedback they needed.
You end up reworking parts of their talk for them.
Your current systems are too time consuming and produce inconsistent results.
It’s not that you don’t try, you do. You set them up with a process to follow. Start early. Get feedback from your peers. Practice with each other. You think, “I figured this out, they should be able to as well.”
Arav Saherwala
McGill University
Andrew's mentorship has helped me develop strong research communication and public speaking skills! It has helped me craft other presentations for lab meetings, workshops, and conferences. In fact, I believe working with Andrew has helped me win numerous awards at regional, national, and international conferences.
Mohammad Hadavi
PhD candidate. McGill University
Andy creates a fantastic atmosphere, always brimming with energy and filled with invaluable tips! In February 2024, I had the incredible opportunity to present my research at CatIQ Connect 2024 in front of ~200-300 people from industry, academia, and government, where I was awarded as one of the top three students.it's amazing to see how much I've grown, especially considering English isn't my first language. His guidance has been instrumental in my journey, and I'm truly grateful for all his support along the way
Atia Amin
PhD candidate. McGill University
The first time I met him, I was utterly captivated. His enthusiasm, spontaneity, ideas, and, of course, his impeccable public speaking skills overwhelmed me. Over the course of a year, Andy became my mentor, imparting his knowledge of public speaking to me. He guided me through every facet of the art, from mastering stage presence to harnessing body language and modulating my voice to engage with the audience effectively. I owe a great deal of my success to Andy.
Ramin Farhad
PhD candidate.
University of California, San Francisco
Throughout my PhD I’ve attended several talks and workshops on how to create and deliver an effective presentation. Andy’s presentation workshop was indeed the most comprehensive and transformative session He was quite efficient with the short time we had and shared numerous nuggets of wisdom. And the best part was the delivery of the information, which not only easily made it to my long-term memory, but also served as a living example of how to effectively present data.
Pratik Mahajan
PhD student in Political Science Yale University
Through your presentations skills course and the 3MT competition, you equipped me with the skills and confidence to share my passion for research on indigenous peoples in India. This was immensely helpful in an academic conference I presented at last summer, where I followed your advice to present the results first to make the presentation more engaging. While this is only the beginning, I wanted to share my utmost gratitude for your encouragement and mentorship at a nascent stage of my journey!
What graduate researchers say...
The real issue:
Presenting research at a conference or for a dissertation defense or for a job talk is different from in-class presentations students are used to doing. Presenting your own research is not a test and it’s not an oral version of a journal article either.
Effectively presenting your own research is different, and they don’t understand how to do it well. You know this, but you are unsure how to quickly and consistently explain it to them, and then get them be able to execute on that understanding.
The Program guides them through a 5 step process to ensure success.
A simple form that creates the foundation: what problem are you solving and how are you solving it? What is the knowledge and your hypothesis? What is the most novel part of the process? What is your most important result? What is now possible because of what you have found out?
Program guidance to complete the form. An integrated peer feedback system to review it, then a required revision, then review by you to comment and reject or approve this foundational starting point.
Moving from questions to a draft talk outline with 5 critical slides. Again, there is required peer review before a meeting with you for approval to move on.
A 5-minute version of their talk. This version nails the overall trajectory without getting lost in the complexity of every detail. You have a choice to review this version privately or have them share it in a lab meeting for everyone to learn.
A full length version, with a twist. It’s not an open, unscripted feedback session. Three types of feedback are given: content, visuals, and delivery, using forms I’ve designed. The process is fully automated and takes less than 5 minutes.
Then the floor opens and you can guide the rest of the feedback session in the ways you think are needed–or simply move on to a more important task.
A final check step. They re-give the talk (either to you, a trusted senior postdoc, or again to the whole lab). This step ensures they integrate the feedback given, and it gets them a final practice rep before they hit the main stage.
10+ Years
10,00+ Researchers Trained
500+ Workshops
Built on 15+ Years of Successful Presentations.
The PresentBetter framework has been personally taught to 10,000+ researchers across universities, institutes, and labs. It's helped doctoral students win 3-minute thesis competitions, secure dissertation funding, and land competitive postdocs. It's helped senior researchers present to policymakers, pitch to investors, and teach their own trainees how to communicate without sacrificing rigor.
This program distills that work into 16 total modules built with input from PhD and postdoc trainees who've been through it and PIs who've coached alongside it.