Reineke Helps Students With Public Speaking Skills

Juliann Reineke is helping students develop presentation skills to defend their thesis and explain their research — sometimes in three minutes or less.

Reineke, an associate director of the Global Communication Center at Carnegie Mellon, teaches from experience. She earned her doctor’s degree in English at CMU, and placed second in the university’s Three Minute Thesis Championship in 2016, a competition that challenges Ph.D. students to explain their research to a general audience in three minutes or less. She presented her ideas, drawn from 18th-century literature, on modern-day veterans reintegrating as civilians.

“I did it because I was terrified of public speaking and it forced me into practicing and developing skills I knew I needed,” Reineke said.

At the Global Communication Center (GCC), Reineke works with director and mentor Joanna Wolfe and special consultant Alex Hall to provide workshops for hundreds of students each semester. She also conducts training sessions every fall for about 25 students to serve as student tutors.

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