Andy Churchill,  phd, mba

Hone Communications

I work with individuals and organizations to help researchers present better. I start with helping them find their story and then coach them to deliver it in the most effective way.  Since Covid, my work has focused around helping people navigate the shifts to presenting online: 
👉 your voice (tone, pace, volume, pausing) remains your most important tool, and embracing the attitudes and feeling you want to convey is your most critical skill.
👉 stories still rule: tech interaction tricks are useful, but don't get sucked too far down that rabbit hole because stories are still the most effective driver of deep engagement, learning and memory.
👉 understand the impact of body language: while it has become less impactful on the audience, it still influences your own confidence and energy.
👉 the movement of visuals in person competes with your ability to engage your audience, but online, that same movement helps capture and retain attention: adjust accordingly.

A short selection of past companies & organizations with whom I've worked:
MY01
Engineva
McGill DeSautels School of Business
Research Institute of McGill University Health Care
Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec
Pharmaceutical Sciences World Congress
MUHC Foundation
Bio-Sync
Integrated Program in Neuroscience

Co-Founder

Sounds of Science live

Co-Host

McGill University - Teaching and Learning Services

PROGRAMS INCLUDE:
3MT Training Developer & Director (100+ student competition)
Pitch Coach: McGill Hakim Family Prize (2x$50,000 winning grants)
Training Director, Lister Family Engaged Science Initiative (500 students/year)
Pitch Coach: Surgical Innovation Program (2-3 successful start-ups emerge each year)
Presentation Coach: TISED Changemakers (annual conference keynote speakers)
Pitch Coach: MI4 / McGill Advancement Collaboration (prepare professors for donor meetings)
Video Training (prepare professors for the recording studio)

Presentation Skills Training Manager

The McGill Writing Centre

COURSES INCLUDE: Fundamentals of Academic Presentations, Communication in Engineering, Cornerstones of Academic Writing, Communication in Management
👉These undergraduate, graduate and professional level courses all share communicating more effectively as their common thread.  Spanning from traditional academic writing (e.g., research papers and dissertations) to professional writing (e.g., cover letters & project proposals) to start-up needs (pitches & business plans) this work bridges the academic and professional spheres in ways that have come to define my career.

For this work, I have received the prestigious McGill Distinguished Teaching Award.

Sessional Instructor

Engineva

I work with clients to write the technical documentation needed for Science Research and Experimental Design (SR&ED) funding from federal and provincial governments. This work involves transforming technical texts to accessible, engaging narrative.

Technical Advisor

turn your audience into your champions: ignite curiosity 🔥 scaffold understanding ✔ maximize impact 🚀. The PresentBetter Program for lab research groups & academic institutes -now over 7,000 researchers served.

Every piece of research, when effectively communicated, can spark change. 

In academia. In careers. In society.

But too often, important findings remain hidden, their potential unrealized. 
The importance/impact of research gets:
●	Buried under layers of complexity
●	Communicated without connecting
●	Overwhelmed by scientific terms and processes

This is why I created PresentBetter: 
To transform how your researchers share their ideas with the world. 
Together we distill years of complex study into clear, compelling narratives that resonate with and inspire audiences.
By amplifying researcher’s voices, we elevate the ability to communicate research in ways that:
●	Moves people
●	Propels careers forward
●	Bridges the gap between academia and society

Through PresentBetter.org, I offer tailored solutions to meet diverse needs:
1.	Individual Coaching: One-on-one sessions crafted for your specific presentation challenges.
2.	Lab and Department Workshops: Small group training to elevate your entire team's communication skills.
3.	Institutional Programs: Comprehensive, scalable solutions for universities and research institutions.
4.	Conference and Event Preparation: Targeted coaching for high-stakes presentations that can define careers.
5.	Online Courses: Self-paced learning for researchers seeking flexibility.

We aim to create a future where every researcher's voice resonates with clarity and impact.



PS Wondering if too good to be true? Here's a link to the talk I coached that was voted the best 3 minute research presentation in North America last year. Scroll through the flipbook for the talk, key lessons, minute by minute breakdown, and a description of the program that I used to train the speaker: https://www.presentbetter.org/post/international-award-winning-talk

Andy Churchill, phd, mba

"You know you weren't sharing any slides?"
"No, I thought you could see them"
 An hour later the judges returned with their verdict.
The professor had won the McGill Clinical Innovation Pitch Competition.

Simple lesson: The presentation is better when it's not about your slides.

Don't get me wrong, I like slides, I work hard helping people improve their slides. I even have a slick "7 rules for better slides."

But before I do that I teach people to change their relationship with their slides. That's the root of most visuals problems, and fixing the root of problems is the way to help people actually improve.

And when you're no longer slide dependent, you make better slides and you give better presentations.


My newsletter this week shares 3 tips to fix the relationship problem most researchers have with your slides. If you're not signed up, join over 1,000 of your research colleagues here: https://lnkd.in/eb9kYBmx 

PS: you might have noticed: there's no visual here. Sometimes we're just better off without it.

Andrew Churchill, PhD

Amplifying the voice of researchers | Founder of PresentBetter | 10+ years & 10,000+ researchers trained | Currently booking with universities for winter/spring ’26

In my work with PhDs and postdocs, here's 1 thing I've noticed you often miss about your next presentation. 

It's not really like what you've mostly seen and often done before: in-class oral tests and classroom lectures. 

Neither of those are good models for the ones you now have to do:
 1. conference presentation
 2. dissertation defense
 3. job talk
 4. presentation beyond academia
And each of these is uniquely different from each other.  

That's the reason my digital course will start with the choice of 4 videos from the list above, each a deep dive into that particular genre.

Curious: if you could ask a question about just one, what would it be?  



video here is a cell phone recording of the intro to the 4 videos mentioned above.  Thought would be fun to share this behind the scenes look at the McGill University Telestudio when I've been recording the program.

Last time I was here it was a for a McGill project 
This time it's for you, well those of you who are PhDs or postdocs wanting to learn to present better.  

Tomorrow is the first day of filming.  
I can't wait.  

PS If you want updates, check in the comments. I'm starting a sign-up for people who want to be in the know for early releases.

Season 3 of my newsletter brings you stories of putting the research behind presenting better into practice.

Tomorrow's talks about my work with Dr. Jen Ronholm and her graduate students in the One Health Against Pathogens (OHAP) program supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). I explain how Jen and I integrated presentation training into lessons and assignments the students were already doing rather than as external workshops.

How'd we do it?
What was the result?
I’ll let you read for yourself tomorrow. 

Newsletter sign-up next to profile pic.

Helping you leverage AI tools in scientific writing and publishing | Speaker with 6+ years experience | Edited over 1500+ scientific documents | Former DAAD young ambassador

Speaker with over 6 years of experience. My top programs are faculty development programs around "AI tools in scientific writing and publishing". I conduct two signature 10-day online workshops every year, one in January and the other in June, focusing on the various tenets of manuscript writing and publishing with hands-on experience on select AI tools. Registration for the January 2025 Cohort will open in the first week of November 2024

Founder of Sowmis_AWW, a start-up helping researchers with medical writing, manuscript writing and publishing, and grant writing support systems, hand-holding them from choosing the right journals, proofreading for language, conciseness, and cohesiveness, cross-checking responses to reviewer comments, to preparing cover letters, highlights, and other ancillary requirements of the journal submission package. Sowmis_AWW was incubated in the WSP4 program of NSRCEL (IIM-Bangalore)

Two defining periods of my academic career were

My brief time at IIT Madras during my Master's under the aegis of JNCASR summer research fellowship for two consecutive years. I continued the work for my Master's thesis. I have cleared/ bagged several national and state-level qualifying exams and scholarships, including CSIR-UGC NET, DBT-JRF, TN SET, and GATE. Yes, I did intend to teach and research in academia before life pivoted and I landed doing what I do today!

Availing the DAAD sandwich scholarship to carry out a part of my Ph.D. work at the University of Osnabrueck, Germany. I continued my association with DAAD as a DAAD Young Ambassador, which marked the beginning of my speaking career

At present, I am happy to be an Editor with Editage, Founder at Sowmis_AWW, and Parent to a 10-year-old vivacious young girl. When I am not traveling for speaking and training engagements, I love traveling for pleasure and gathering new experiences, and exercising my "photographing muscles"

Sowmiya Rani Ph.D.

10 databases for collecting literature for your systematic literature reviews


✅ Medline https://lnkd.in/gfx6jz_H
"The Medline database from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) contains more than 12 million bibliographic citations from over 4,600 international biomedical journals. One of the interfaces for searching Medline is PubMed, provided by the NLM for free access via the Internet"

✅ Embase https://lnkd.in/gzb7XeVz
"Leverage the power of AI-based natural language search on Embase to quickly find the precise information you need. Experts worldwide trust Embase for its comprehensive biomedical data. Go further, faster with Embase AI"

✅ CINAHL https://lnkd.in/g6YmSkEJ
"CINAHL indexes the top nursing and allied health literature available including nursing journals and publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses Association. For full-text nursing and allied health journals, CINAHL Ultimate is the largest full-text companion to the CINAHL index"

✅ Cochrane central https://lnkd.in/gU58gcxi
" a highly concentrated source of reports of randomized and quasi-randomized controlled trials, published monthly. CENTRAL records always include bibliographic details (author, title, source, year, etc.) and usually include an abstract (summary of the article)"

✅ https://lnkd.in/gGHRN6mv
"ClinicalTrials.gov is a website and online database of clinical research studies and information about their results. The purpose of ClinicalTrials.gov is to provide information about clinical research studies to the public, researchers, and health care professionals"

✅ Elsevier | Scopus https://lnkd.in/gpUvs7wT
"Scopus is an abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature including scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. Scopus provides a comprehensive overview of worldwide research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities"

✅ Web of Science 
"Find unique papers from niche resources focusing on specific subject areas and regions with an efficient tool to support systematic and literature reviews"

The final 3 in 📌📌 comments

Do follow & Hit 🔔 icon at Sowmiya Rani Ph.D. 
----------------------------------------
Hello! I am Sowmiya, an academic editor and speaker, empowering academic researchers and industrial R&D teams to leverage AI tools ethically for writing and publishing scientific/medical manuscripts and integrating AI into teaching and learning processes in higher Ed

📲 91-99445 80436
📧 sowmis.aww@gmail.com

#research #academia #medicalwriting #publication #speaker 
#academicwriting #ai #scientificwriting #SLRs 

PS: Pictures from the one-day workshop on "Harnessing AI ethically for scientific writing & publishing" for JSS College of Pharmacy, Ooty
JSS Mahavidyapeetha
JSS Medical College, Mysore
JSS College of Pharmacy, Mysuru
JSSATEB Bengaluru

AI for Research and Teaching in Higher Ed | Speaker with 7+ years experience | Edited over 1500+ scientific documents | Former DAAD young ambassador

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