Posters
Poster presentations are the core of the SPUR. Posters have been used for decades at regional, national and international conferences to easily and effectively communicate both early- and late-stage research to the public. Posters are usually one of the first opportunities for undergraduate students to actually present their work outside of their own laboratory group or department.
Please review all of the guidelines on this page before preparing your poster, as well as the sample templates and helpful hints.
Poster Guidelines
Size
Our size guidelines are designed specifically to optimize the number of posters in the meeting space. It is critical that you do not create a poster that is larger than the max sizes listed below. Otherwise, your poster will literally overlap with nearby posters.
- Clark Summer Research Program and Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (URAP) Max Poster Size: 24″ (high) x 36″ (wide)
- Max Poster Size for All Other Participants: 36″ (high) x 48″ (wide)
You will be responsible for putting up your poster for display on the morning of the SPUR symposium, prior to the official event start.
Graphics and Printing
- If you use UTD logos, you should only use official logos. Official UTD logos can be obtained from the University’s Brand Standards website.
- Printing costs are the responsibility of the faculty mentor, unless you are in a specific program that includes poster costs. Please contact your program head if you are in one of these programs:
- Clark Summer Research Program – Wendi Kavanaugh
- Bioengineering Undergraduate Research – Dr. Betsy Willis
- NIH Maximizing Acces for Research Careers (MARC) – Dr. Ben Kolber
- Center for Children and Families NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates – Dr. Mandy Maguire
- NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates in Wind Energy Systems – Dr. Stefano Leonardi
- NSF REU in Theoretical and Experimental Physics – Dr. Lindsay King
- NSF REU Electronic Materials Evaluation Research for Greater Exposure to Future Technology Careers (EMERGE) – Dr. Chadwin Young
- Pioneer Program (Math) – Dr. Vish Ramakrishna
- Poster printing on campus at the UTD Copy Center:
- Deadline: They need your poster 1 week before SPUR symposium
- Cost: 24×36 = $36; 36×48 = $72
- Contact: copycenter@utdallas.edu; 972-883-2265
Poster Templates
You can use whatever software you want to produce your poster (PowerPoint, Adobe Illustrator, etc.), but your poster should be able to be saved as a PDF for easy printing.
Many laboratories or research groups have a standard template. Talk to your faculty mentor to see if there is a template that you should use.
Below are some available UTD templates. Please note you will have to re-size these to fit within the above restrictions.
Clark Summer Program Templates. If you are in the Clark program, here are some templates (Powerpoint) already formatted for you!
- Clark Template #1
- Clark Template #2
- Clark Template #3
- Clark Template #4
- Clark Template #5
- Clark Template #6
Be a Rigor Champion
Do you want to show how rigorous your research is? A good way to do that is to use “Rigor Icons”. The following were developed by the National Institutes of Health to act as a quick guide for readers of poster. Consider adding them to your poster when appropriate.
- Blinding or Masking
- Randomization
- Data were excluded or included using defined criteria
- Exploratory Study (hypothesis generating)
- Sample Sizes were Estimated with a Power Analysis
Poster Hints
Like any presentation, poster presentations should be carefully prepared and practiced. Here are some helpful tips on effective poster presentations (pdf).
How should you dress? “Business casual” is the best bet for the SPUR presentation. The goal is to do dress professionally so that people pay attention to your research and not what you are wearing!
