Laurence Willemet remembers countless family dinners where curious faces turned to her with shades of the same question: “What is it, exactly, that you do with robots?” It’s a familiar scenario for MIT students exploring topics outside of their family’s scope of knowledge — distilling complex concepts without slides or jargon, plumbing the depths with nothing but lay terms. “It was during these moments,” Willemet says, “that I realized the importance of clear communication and the power of storytelling.” Participating in the MIT Research Slam, then, felt like one of her…
