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April 2, 2019

Graduate School to host Three Minute Thesis Competition

The seventh annual Three Minute Thesis competition will feature finalist presentations at 7 p.m. April 16 in Stewart Center's Loeb Playhouse. The event, sponsored by Purdue's Graduate School , is free and open to the public.

Graduate students participating in the cross-disciplinary competition will have three minutes to present their research results and its significance to judges and audience members. The competition encourages students to develop the ability to effectively and succinctly explain their research in language appropriate for a nonspecialist audience. Participants will be judged on three criteria: their communication style, ability to help audience members comprehend their research, and their ability to engage listeners.

The competition, developed by Australia’s University of Queensland in 2008, challenges students to consolidate their ideas and crystallize their research discoveries. There are restrictions for participants; for example, only a single static PowerPoint slide is permitted, and no props are allowed.

Audience members will have the opportunity to vote for the recipient of a People's Choice award. The winner of the competition will receive $2,000, a runner-up $1,000 and the People's Choice awardee $1,000.

For more information about the Three Minute Thesis Competition, contact the Graduate School at [email protected] .

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Three-Minute Thesis

A competition developed by The University of Queensland, Three Minute Thesis develops academic, presentation and research-communication skills, helping students to effectively explain their research to a non-specialist audience.

Congratulations to Our Winners!

We are pleased to announce this year’s Three-Minute Thesis competition winners. Thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s competition

Undergraduate

Congrats to Mateo Garcia (center) for earning second place in the undergraduate category for PNW’s 2022 Three-Minute Thesis competition. From left to right: workshop presenter Erin Protsman, judge Tony Sindone, Garcia, judge Carin Chuang, judge Jean Jiang and Director of Graduate Studies Joy Colwell.

• Kevin Davis (not pictured)
• Mateo Garcia
• Wendy St. Jean
• Tony Sindone

Congrats to Chukwenudum Uzor (center right) and Maeve Cucolotto (center left) for earning first and second place respectively in the graduate category for PNW’s 2022 Three-Minute Thesis competition. From left to right: workshop presenter Erin Protsman, judge Tony Sindone, Cuculotto, Uzor, judge Carin Chuang, judge Jean Jiang and Director of Graduate Studies Joy Colwell.

Winner (Tie)

• Chukwenudum Uzor
• Congshan Mao (not pictured)
• Maeve Cuculotto

Who’s Eligible?

Currently active senior undergraduate students and graduate students are eligible to participate in 3MT®. Graduate and undergraduates present in separate rounds. Work presented must have been conducted at PNW and should be in the final stages so you have some sound conclusions and impacts from your research.

Capstone projects are accepted for competition. These projects must include a level of research and scholarship. Previous graduates are not eligible.

About The 3MT

Three Minute Thesis (3MT®)  is a research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland (UC), Australia. The competition develops academic, presentation, and research communication skills and supports the development of students’ capacities to effectively explain their research in language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience.

3MT® is a fast-paced competition presented in only three minutes with only one slide. It is not an exercise in trivializing or “dumbing down” research, but challenges students to consolidate their ideas and research discoveries. During each competition, participants will have three minutes to present a compelling discussion on their research topic, including its significance and relevance, to the general public.

Rules and Guidelines

Competition Rules

Explore eligibility from judging criteria, see how the 3MT® competition operates.

Explore Rules

Participant Guidelines

Competing in 3MT®? See our pointers, from writing to creating your slide!

Discover 3MT® Tips

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The Challenge of a Thesis in 3 Minutes

The Three-Minutes Thesis, or 3MT as it is widely known, began at the University of Queensland in Australia in 2008 with an egg-timer but is now held in 900 universities in over 85 countries. The challenge is for graduate students to effectively present their research in a captivating and inspiring manner to a non-specialist audience in 3-minutes or less using only one slide. Since 2017, The Graduate School at Augusta University (AU) has hosted 3MT competitions highlighting the outstanding research of our graduate students.

This year, The Graduate School’s 3MT event showcased research presentations from six graduate students in the final competition:

· Kirstyn Denney (Neuroscience) · Sam Melnyk (Physiology) · Neea Rusch (Computer and Cyber Sciences) · Kathryn Sinha (Biostatistics) · Edidiong Usoro (Biochemistry and Cancer Biology) · Samuel Walton (Physiology)

The event also featured a special presentation by Hiroko Tanaka and Rachel Laird (Medical Illustration), the first place winners of the AU Innovate Pitch Competition.

The final round of the competition was judged by a panel of prominent professionals in their respective fields. The judges included Dr. Amy Abdulovic-Cui (Biological Sciences), Dr. Marc Austin (Assoc. Provost), Dr. Russell Keen (EVP Administration & Chief of Staff), Dr. Zach Kelehear (VP for Instruction), Dr. Lester Pretlow (Dean, College of Allied Health Sciences) and Jennie Montgomery, co-anchor of WJBF News Channel 6 and host of her television show “Jennie”.

Judges faced a challenging task in choosing winners from the competitive field of participants. While each of the presentations was excellent, at the end of the competition Kirstyn Denney was awarded first place for her presentation titled “A New Look at Memory and Aging”; Samuel Walton awarded second place for his presentation titled “T cells: The Jekyll Turned Hyde of Salt Sensitive Hypertension” and Edidiong Usoro awarded the People’s Choice award for her presentation titled “From Shadows to Spotlight: Revolutionizing Brian Cancer Treatments with Hypoxia-Targeted Strategies using the Nucleotide Approach”.

Samuel Walton shared “I think we all think it would be easy to explain our project, until we start this project and realize how hard it is to breakdown our work simply, but having the 3MT experience, I know I can now easily share my research to a wide variety of individuals…”.

Sam Melnyk commented further emphasizing the value of participating, stating, “The 3MT really made me think about my project in a different light to be able to communicate my research more effectively to someone who doesn’t have a scientific background.”

Kirstyn Denney added, “The 3MT not only offered useful development of skills in scientific communication, but also fostered an experience that allowed several graduate students across multiple fields to bond and aid each other in our own personal growth.”

The sense of community and support students experience throughout the process was echoed by multiple participants including Neea Rusch who said “I enjoyed the opportunity to learn about the kind of research other students are doing in other programs. … the experience strengthened my sense of belonging in the AU graduate community.”

The Graduate School congratulates and is proud of the 3MT participants, recognizing their growth and accomplishments throughout the process. The school is also grateful for all the supportive faculty and community members who contributed to the success of the student participants, workshops and 3MT events.

Dr. Patricia Cameron

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Development and Evaluation of Transparent, Aligned Polycrystalline Alumina as an Infrared Window Candidate for Hypersonic Flight

Hypersonic flight is the key to unlocking a nation’s strategic advantage in this century’s military theater. Military powerhouses such as the United States, Russia, India, China, Australia, and the EU publicly possess hypersonic weapons capabilities. Such technology enables intercontinental travel orders of magnitude faster than conventional flights. A trip halfway across the world would take not twenty hours, but two. However, the level of thermal and chemical load the aircraft and these electronic equipment experience while at such high speeds cause them to fail. Thus, ceramic window materials are used to act as a barrier between the hypersonic flight environment and this sensitive electronic equipment. Such materials need to be both mechanically robust, but transparent within the relevant infrared ranges used for target detection. Single-crystal sapphire (alumina) is an infrared window material readily available, plentiful, and easy to microstructurally control and manufacture, but not optimal. Its transparency range is limited to the optical and near-infrared, while it exhibits poor mechanical and dielectric strength. Polycrystalline alumina (PCA) has recently been shown to possess more favorable infrared window characteristics as opposed to its single-crystal counterpart. This is achieved by processing using a platelet powder morphology in a single processing step – hot-pressing. Full densification (> 99.5%) of PCA samples was achieved, demonstrating maximum of 84% optical transparency, but accompanied by grain growth (60+µm), resulting in lower mechanical strength. This research thus works on a two-fold approach to minimizing the grain growth of PCA. Optical tests demonstrated favorable results for lowering isothermal temperatures to reduce grain growth. Weibull values of m = 28.8 and m = 9.7 from 4 point-flexure tests were obtained (ASTM 1161a). Thermal loading via ablation testing compared PCA samples to industry alternatives (single-crystal sapphire) and (equiaxed alumina). Ablation tests revealed the benefit of polycrystalline alumina over sapphire. The benefit of lower isothermal sintering temperatures for reduced grain growth resulted in higher peak load before failure, resulting in greater characteristic strength and minimal transmission lost during a minute of oxyacetylene heat flux exposure. Finally, additional work was done on nanoceramic MgO-Y 2 O 3 , in a ceramic-processing method like that of PCA. These findings will also be discussed.

Degree Type

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Materials Engineering

Campus location

• West Lafayette

Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair

Advisor/supervisor/committee co-chair, additional committee member 2, additional committee member 3, usage metrics.

• Materials engineering not elsewhere classified
• Hypersonic propulsion and hypersonic aerothermodynamics

/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="purdue 3 minute thesis"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Cirtl at cornell, future faculty program, physics ph.d. candidate wins 2024 three minute thesis competition.

~ March 22, 2024 ~ 

“I want you to remember a time when you were in a setting where you felt like you didn’t belong. I want you to remember how you felt in that setting, maybe isolated or out of place, and how much you felt like you wanted to continue going back to that setting—probably not much. These feelings are all too familiar for undergraduate women pursuing their studies in science, and in physics specifically,” began Meagan Sundstrom, a doctoral candidate in physics at the ninth annual Cornell University Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.

Alongside seven other finalists, Sundstrom presented her dissertation research in just three minutes on March 20 to a panel of judges and an audience from across campus while additional friends, family, advisors, and lab mates watched online. In the first in-person Cornell 3MT since 2019, presentations were judged by how clearly and compellingly students summarized their research to a general audience, using only one static slide.

Sundstrom’s presentation, “Recognizing and Removing Barriers for Women in Physics,” earned her first place and $1,500. Second place and $1,000 was awarded to information science doctoral student Sterling Williams-Ceci for her presentation, “AI Helps us Write – but at What Cost?”

Read article by Katya Hrichak on the Graduate School’s website

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Life Inspired Week: HHS Research Poster Symposium and Three-Minute Thesis Presentations and Competition

Friday, March 31, 2023

Poster Session: 9:00-10:30 a.m. ET Purdue Memorial Union, East and West Faculty Lounges

Join us for this exciting event to share and learn about research being conducted in our college by faculty, postdoctoral research scholars, graduate students and undergraduate students! Cash prizes for 1st ($300), 2nd ($200) and 3rd ($100) place will be presented within each HHS Signature Area (awards for student posters only).

Three-Minute Thesis: 11:00 a.m.-12:00 P.M. ET Purdue Memorial Union, East Lounge

Come and hear outstanding HHS graduate students and faculty present their research thesis in just three minutes. Cash prizes for 1st ($300), 2nd ($200) and 3rd ($100) place will be presented. Faculty awards (gift cards) will also be presented.

Awards for the poster session and Three-Minute Thesis Competition will be announced between 12 -12:15 p.m.

Free and open to HHS faculty, staff and students. No registration required to attend this event.

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Técnico Lisboa

• Institutional Repository

Técnico student in the final of the ‘3 Minute Thesis’ competition

Renata Castelo Branco will present her doctoral thesis topic on June 6th, at the National Museum of Natural History and Science in Lisbon.

The second edition of the ‘3 Minute Thesis’ competition has 12 finalists , including Renata Castelo Branco, a Computer Science and Engineering PhD student at Instituto Superior Técnico. The final of the competition will take place at the National Museum of Natural History and Science in Lisbon, on June 6th.

Renata Castelo Branco will present her research conducted at the Algorithmic Design for Architecture group, where she develops mechanisms that make programming easier for architects. The PhD student conducts her research at the Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores – Investigação e Desenvolvimento (INESC-ID) , a research unit affiliated to Técnico.

This competition challenges PhD students from the 18 Schools of Universidade de Lisboa to explain the impact of their research to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes using a single slide.

“3-Minute Thesis” final competition – Universidade de Lisboa

Técnico student wins the 1st edition of the “3-Minute Thesis” competition

3-Minute Thesis competition: Five Técnico students are among the 12 finalists

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