Future research summarised in just three minutes

University of Adelaide students will battle it out in the University Final of the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) this Tuesday, 10 September.

Students will explore topics in economics, humanities, medicine, physics, chemistry and earth sciences, agriculture, food and wine, biological sciences and animal sciences.

Students taking on the challenge have made it through faculty heats to participate in the University final on North Terrace campus. The winner of Tuesday's event will compete in the Virtual Asia Pacific Finals on Wednesday, 30 October.

The Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology will be represented by Ashleigh Lake and her presentation Chasing cells… literally!, Zane Marks with Priming: Chemical X for Plants and Georgia Moloney and Break the chains: Sniffing out maritime wildlife trafficking.

Mabel Day, also of SET, will present on her topic Light-Initiated Degradation: A Brighter Future for PFAS.

"The persistence of these chemicals (PFAS) poses a serious risk to human health, making the need for an effective and safe method of degradation of these chemicals vital for long-term environmental and human wellbeing," she said.

"I am motivated by the potential to develop an innovative method of PFAS degradation by utilising light-initiated degradation techniques (photocatalysis)."

Mabel said she was looking forward to presenting her research at the University Final.

"It has been an incredibly rewarding experience so far," she said.

"It has challenged me to communicate complex research themes in an engaging way to a broad audience whilst developing my public speaking skills.

"I have also been able to connect and share this unique experience with my fellow competitors, making friends along the way from diverse research backgrounds."

From the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Matthew Summers will present on ICU to Recovery: Fighting Muscle Wasting, Chan Hee Cho on Predicting hip implant failure and Isabella Burdon on How to Kill A Superbug.

Two students from the Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics (ABLE) are competing. Jyoti Khisha is asking the question, “Do entrepreneurs catch optimism within startup incubators? and Megan Moon is exploring Lighting the Fuse: BTS’s ‘Dynamite’ and K-pop’s English Explosion.

Jack Hetherington, also from ABLE, was also a faculty winner with his topic -- Helping Little Miss Muffet to find a better 'whey'.

"At its heart, my PhD is about tackling food waste; in Australia, a year’s food waste could fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground 10 times over," he said.

"My project is specifically looking at the dairy sector’s hotspot issue of ‘whey’, the liquid by-product of cheesemaking, as there is a lot of it and many options to process it into high value products, with examples of commercial success for all production scales."

Jack said he's enjoyed the 3MT opportunity and given him an opportunity to be creative.

"It’s also been really great to learn about the diverse and important research going on in the University," he said.

"There’s a lot of significant work going on, and I strongly believe it’s crucial for researchers to engage with the public and share what we spend so much of our time on."

The audience at the event which will be live-streamed, will also get to vote on which of the 10 students wins the People’s Choice Award.

3MT is a skills development activity, developed by the University of Queensland, which challenges Higher Degree by Research students to explain their research project to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes and by using just one PowerPoint slide.                                                                                      

When

Tuesday, 10 September, 5:30-6:30 pm.   

Where

The Braggs Building, North Terrace campus, The University of Adelaide.                            

Tickets

Click here to reserve an in-person ticket / Click here to register for the online stream.