2025 DRK-12 PI Meeting Poster Guidelines

All PI meeting participants are invited to present a poster with information about their project. In addition to the in-person poster hall at the PI Meeting in Arlington, VA, participants will have a virtual space to share their poster and handouts asynchronously in Whova, the virtual event platform.

Content and Layout Recommendations

Specifications for Physical Posters

Each project is limited to one poster. Posters should be no larger than 4' wide x 3' high in order to fit on the tri-fold poster board that we will provide. The middle panel of the tri-fold poster board measures 24" wide and the two side panels measure 12" wide each. CADRE will provide binder clips and push pins for attaching posters to boards, but please bring any other materials you may need. Electrical outlets will not be available. You will have table space in front of your poster on which you may place informational materials about your work, including hard copies of your project description and/or products.

Content and Design

We encourage project’s to think creatively about how they would like to visually represent their work. Keep in mind that your poster should quickly and efficiently communicate to viewers your research. The following tips may help as you consider what content and visuals you may want to include:

  • Lead with a big question or idea: Consider using a key idea or research question as the title of your poster instead of your project title.
  • Focus as narrowly as possible on the central ideas you need to convey. You won't have room to explain relationships among ideas in any detail, so pick out what's central to your topic and concentrate on that narrow focus. Key information could include, for example:
    • Background or motivation
    • Research questions
    • Methods
    • Findings and outcomes
    • Challenge areas around which the PI community could advise
  • Use visuals to communicate: Draw in visitors with data visualizations, graphics, and other imagery that help convey your project’s activities and results.
  • Provide access to more details: In addition to the PI name and contact information, include a QR code on your poster that will link participants to more detailed descriptions of your project, research, and results. If you don’t have a project website, you can update and link to your project profile on cadrek12.org.
  • Make the poster readable: Posters should be readable from a distance of 5 feet. Generally, the smallest readable type font at this distance is 20-25 point. While a number of fonts can be used, the following are readable from a distance of 2' to 4': Arial and Bookman 20 point and Times New Roman 24 point. Also, glossy paper will make your content more difficult to read due to reflections.

Poster Layouts

You are welcome to use a traditional research poster layout. However, if you are creating a poster from scratch for the PI meeting, we encourage you to consider these less-text heavy layout alternatives, so that participants can quickly and easily grasp the main takeaways of your project work. Find alternative layout ideas from OSF’s Better Scientific Poster and ECR’s 2024 PI Meeting lightning roundtable infographics.

NSF Disclaimer and Rights to Photos

Posters and presentations must include an NSF disclaimer (Example: This project is funded by the National Science Foundation, grant # XXXXX. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these materials are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.)

Please make sure you have the right to use any photos or images included in your presentations and posters.

Shipping

Posters may be mailed to the hotel at your own expense. Shipping information is listed on the logistics page.

Virtual Posters

All invited projects are encouraged to upload posters for the virtual poster hall to broaden the audience that can learn about your work.

To participate, you will be invited to upload your poster to the meeting app (Whova). This includes a PDF of your poster (see accessibility guidelines), and options to add a video and one additional PDF handout. Each virtual poster booth has a chat box where you can share additional resources with other participants. Virtual posters will be made available to meeting participants on the Whova app.

Uploading Your Poster to Whova

You will receive emails from CADRE and Whova (event-noreply@whova.io) when it’s time to set up your poster. Please check your spam or junk folders if you haven’t received an email from Whova after the email from CADRE. When you click on the link in the email, some field options will be pre-filled from registration. The person who registered as the primary contact for the poster will appear in the app as a presenter automatically.

Whova Fields:

  • Website: Please add a link to learn more about your project, if you have one. You can also link to your project's page on cadrek12.org.
  • Description/Abstract: Update the pre-filled information, as necessary.
  • Number: Please do not make changes to this field.
  • Photos:
    • Cover Photo: This is the photo of your poster.
    • Photos: You can upload additional photos of your work (50 photos with a 10 MB file size limit). These will appear at the bottom of your poster page.
  • Poster Presentation
    • OPTIONAL: Recorded Video: You may add a link to YouTube/Vimeo (recommended) or link to a cloud URL (google drive, drop box, one drive). Note: other URLs such as https://multiplex.videohall.com/ are not allowed in this field.
      • Note: If you upload a video to your poster profile, it will appear at the top of the page as your main poster image, instead of the Cover photo.
    • PDFs (maximum 2 handouts with 10 MB file size limit): You are welcome to upload handouts or other project collateral.
  • Primary Contact: This information is pre-filled for you.
  • Additional Presenters: Additional presenters can only be added if they are registered on Whova.