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Tony award-winning actor Christian Hoff helped Carolina grad students hone their presentation skills.

A group of students seated in an event space listening to a man speaking animatedly.
Christian Hoff addressing Carolina graduate students.

UNC-Chapel Hill Royster fellows had the benefit of advice from a Tony-award winning screen and stage star. 

Prolific performer Christian Hoff, whose acting, singing, and voice work has been featured on and off Broadway, on film and television, and in audiobooks, says he has enjoyed helping students explain complex academic ideas to laypeople. 

“Through some friends who are alumni I was invited to speak to business and entrepreneurial students in the Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship from my perspective as a performer and a Grammy and Tony winner,” said Hoff, who won the 2006 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Featured Role for a Musical for his performance in the original Broadway production of Jersey Boys. “And I became fascinated by the idea of helping brilliant thinkers connect their ideas and data and research to the outside world.” 

Hoff helped 11 Royster fellows prepare for the annual Royster Global Conference, held this year at King’s College London. The UNC-Chapel Hill students joined international students from King’s College London, University of Tübingen in Germany and Kristiania University College in Norway for events focused on the theme “Beyond the Research: Communities & Knowledge Equity.”   

To help them prepare to present their research, Hoff said one of the facets he stressed was personal motivation. 

“The academic pedigree is established, the research is done,” Hoff said. “One way to help people without expertise connect to that work is to explain why you care about it. Are you a former writer who decided to switch to a career in computer science, and now you’re trying to bring a human perspective to language models? Your background and motivation are interesting! 

“I worked with a student bringing a financial model that teaches modern fiscal responsibility to a community that doesn’t have a long history of that in his home country in Africa. He had so much generosity of spirit and I encouraged him to show that! This was about service and helping people in addition to all the excellent work he’d done.” 

Hoff said he also worked on the nuts and bolts of public presentations during his time with the Royster fellows. 

The idea is to foster effective presentation and communication skills, some of which can be summed up simply, Hoff said. 

“Slow down and speak up. Be concise, be clear, and connect.” 

These fundamental principles apply outside of academic presentations, Hoff said.  

“Any young professional trying to convey their ideas to people can learn to do so in a compelling way,” he said. “I am thrilled to help young thinkers bring a sense of aplomb, expertise, confidence, maybe even command to their ideas. I’m here to remind folks that all the world is a stage, and their story is important.” 

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