Nine graduate students will bring their best three-minute pitch about their research and its impact to the DeLuca Forum on Friday, Feb. 20 at UW–Madison’s annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) final competition.
Three Minute Thesis, an international research communication competition, challenges graduate students to explain their research to an audience outside of their highly specialized disciplines.
At the annual event, audience members are invited to learn about a wide range of graduate research from fields such as education, engineering, business, and biology. Students weave engaging and relatable descriptions into their talks, helping everyone understand just a bit more about their expert topics.
The nine competitors and their talk topics are:
- Luke Andersen, master’s student in Electrical and Computer Engineering: “Sustainable Solar”
- Brenna Bierman, PhD student in Chemistry: “From Crystals to Qubits: Topological Superconductors and the Quantum Frontier”
- Sahitha Karapitiya, master’s student in Biological Systems Engineering: “Mitigating heat stress in dairy cattle”
- Benjamin Lebovitz, PhD student in Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis: “The power of one supportive adult”
- Abdul Basith Mohamed Nasik, master’s student in Integrative Biology: “Finding the Hidden Switches That Control How Cells Grow”
- Iris Park, PhD student in Business: “What happens when $2,000 in savings becomes clear?”
- Jahinaya Parker, PhD student in Industrial and Systems Engineering: “Evaluating Human Performance in Automated Vehicles”
- Caroline Roach, PhD student in Pharmaceutical Sciences: “Bending Over Backwards to Inhibit Chikungunya Virus”
- Ebony Taylor, PhD student in Entomology: “The Tiniest Mightiest Mangrove Patch: Using Insects to Measure Coastal Forest Health”
The competitor who captures the hearts of the audience benefits, too: there is a $500 prize for winning the People’s Choice vote at the end of the competition. Judges will also evaluate competitors under set criteria, awarding prizes of up to $1,000 for the top presentations. The top winner as determined by the judges will also represent UW–Madison at the regional level of competition.
The UW-Madison Graduate School and Graduate Women in Science, Madison Chapter host the 3MT competition each year with support from this year’s sponsors: BioForward, Elephas, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, and Promega.
Attend the 3MT Finals:
Friday, Feb. 20
10 am – noon
H.F. DeLuca Forum, Discovery Building
All are welcome to attend as audience members at this event. Registration is not required for the audience.