About this Symposium

Meeting

2027 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition

Symposium

Avoiding Plot Holes: Telling Compelling Stories (with Data)

Sponsorship

TMS Structural Materials Division
TMS Materials Processing and Manufacturing Division
TMS: Advanced Characterization, Testing, and Simulation Committee
TMS: Education Committee
TMS: Integrated Computational Materials Engineering Committee

Organizer(s)

Benjamin A. Begley, ATI
Eric J. Payton, University of Cincinnati
Suveen N. Mathaudhu, Colorado School of Mines
Victoria M. Miller, University of Florida

Scope

Every materials research project contains the raw components of a compelling narrative: our projects have protagonists (a revolutionary new alloy; a hard to interpret diffraction pattern), motivation (the program manager liked it; we’re about to run out of neodymium), dramatic tension (the EBSD detector was down for the 6th time this month!), and climactic resolution (the last result makes sense, I can schedule my defense now!). And yet, we rarely leverage these narrative elements when communicating our work—especially not to other materials scientists.

This symposium explores the dual meaning of "plot" in materials science: both the research stories and the data visualizations we need to tell them. Whether you're wrestling with matplotlib formatting at 2 AM or trying to explain why your research pivot actually made the project better, we're here to help. We examine communication as a craft and explore how storytelling techniques from literature and film can enhance scientific communication without sacrificing rigor (or your credibility at group meeting).

This symposium welcomes contributions spanning the full spectrum of scientific communication in materials science & engineering. Share your hard-won wisdom on making figures that actually clarify instead of confuse, structuring presentations that keep your audience awake, or navigating the brave new world of AI writing assistants. We particularly encourage talks that embrace the complete arc of research—the unexpected detours, the "wait, what?" moments, and the fortuitous accidents that led somewhere interesting but rarely make it into the polished conference presentation.

Suggested topics include (but are not limited to):
• Creating data visualizations that advance the plot (not obscure it)
• Narrative writing strategies for manuscripts, proposals, and that email to your collaborator explaining what actually happened
• Presentation design and delivery that engages scientific audiences (yes, even at 4:30 PM on the last day)
• Responsible uses of large language models: When to let ChatGPT write a draft and when to keep your human hands on the keyboard
• Science story time: Full-narrative talks from experts who'll share how their research really unfolded

Abstracts Due

07/15/2026

Proceedings Plan

Undecided

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