Alex Guo, a third-year undergraduate student in the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University, is researching the power of language to build community and advocate for change.

With dual majors in humanities-prelaw and experience architecture and minors in business and leadership in Integrated Learning, Guo represented the College of Arts & Letters at this semester’s Ignite Talks MSU where she presented her undergraduate research project, “Beyond Rhetoric: Building Trans-Affirming Communities.”

Hosted by the MSU Museum CoLab Studio, Ignite Talks MSU provides a dynamic platform for MSU students to share their research with a wider audience while empowering them to connect their academic work to broader societal contexts. Each presenter is challenged to distill their message into a fast-paced, five-minute presentation accompanied by 20 automatically advancing slides.