More than 50 doctoral students participated in the 2018 3 Minute Thesis preliminary competition October 2 in the Hill Student Center, and more than half of those students will advance to the semi-finals next week.
Hosted by UAB Graduate School and developed by The University of Queensland, the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition celebrates the exciting research conducted by Ph.D. students. The exercise cultivates students’ academic, presentation and research communication skills. The competition supports their capacity to effectively explain their research in three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience.
Student competitors were divided into nine sessions. A panel of judges from across campus listened and scored each competitor. The three students with the highest scores from each session will advance to the semifinals, which will take place at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, October 9, in the Hill Student Center ballrooms B, C and D.
The Graduate School would like to thank all of our student participants, as well as those who volunteered their time to judge the competition.
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Session 1
1st Place: Christy Killon, Ph.D. trainee in Cell, Molecular, and Developmental Biology. The title of her talk was The chain reactions of guided growth.
2nd Place: Mackenzie Davenport, Ph.D. trainee in Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics. The title of her talk was Targeting the little guy: microRNAs in lung cancer.
3rd Place: Mohammad Abdelgawwad, Ph.D. trainee in Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine. The title of his talk was A Trojan Horse delivery of possible treatment for a rare, potentially deadly, blood-clotting disorder.
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Session 2
1st Place: Daniel Kuhman, Ph.D. trainee in Rehabilitation Science. The title of his talk was Motor Flexibility: The ability to adopt task-appropriate gait strategies.
1st Place: Amy Bonka, Ph.D. trainee in Biology. The title of her talk was Applying new technologies to save the world's most endangered sea turtle.
2nd Place: Makenzie Callahan, Ph.D. trainee in Nutrition Sciences. The title of her talk was Food insecurity: Not all perceptions are equal.
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Session 3
1st Place: Jamelle Brown, Ph.D. trainee in Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine. The title of his talk was The Little Engine that Could ... help us understand heart disease.
2nd Place: Melissa Walker, Ph.D. trainee in Biology. The title of her talk was Comparing rock slime diversity in paradise.
3rd Place: Oluwabunmi Dada, Ph.D. trainee in Environmental Health Sciences. The title of her talk was Electronic cigarette: A solution to tobacco smoking or an emerging public health crisis?
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Session 4
1st Place: Anthoni Goodman, Ph.D. trainee in Behavioral Neuroscience. The title of his talk was Excited to take a stand against Alzheimer's.
2nd Place: Randyl Cochran, Ph.D. trainee in Health Services Administration. The title of her talk was Connecting the Pieces.
3rd Place: Tanner Godfrey, Ph.D. trainee in Biochemistry, Structural, and Stem Cell Biology. The title of his talk was Constructing the genetic landscape of bone.
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Session 5
1st Place: Becky Hauser, Ph.D. trainee in Genetics, Genomics, and Bioinformatics. The title of her talk was Epilepsy: Back on track.
2nd Place: Kristin Olson, MD/Ph.D. trainee in Biostatistics. The title of her talk was Predicting chlamydia reinfection: A mathematical approach.
3rd Place: Kate Joyce, Ph.D. trainee in Genetics, Genomics, and Bioinformatics. The title of her talk was Powering thinking: Mitochondria and the brain.
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Session 6
1st Place: Michael Schultz, Ph.D. trainee in Immunology. The title of his talk was Killing a nasty blood sucker by blocking its metabolism.
2nd Place: Maria Lechtreck, Ph.D. trainee in Behavioral Neuroscience. The title of her talk was Street smarts.
3rd Place: Lisa Antoine, Ph.D. trainee in Interdisciplinary Engineering. The title of her talk was Location is everything.
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Session 7
1st Place: Sithira Ratnayaka, Ph.D. trainee in Chemistry. The title of his talk was 3 S's towards better cancer therapy.
2nd Place: Rhiannon Reed, Ph.D. trainee in Health Care Organization and Policy. The title of her talk was Living donor navigation: Connecting the dots for our patients.
3rd Place: Fabio Raman, MD/Ph.D. trainee in Biomedical Engineering. The title of his talk was Cut your losses: Diagnosing Alzheimer's disease in a nutshell.
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Session 8
1st Place: Melissa Bentley, Ph.D. trainee in Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine. The title of her talk was Primary cilia: Structures at the heart of development.
2nd Place: Keyur Savla, Ph.D. trainee in Vision Science. The title of his talk was The dream 'eye' can achieve!
3rd Place: Jack Schoelz, Ph.D. trainee in Biology. The title of his talk was The blob revisited (feat. Heterochromatin Protein 1).
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Session 9
1st Place: Claire Hui Wu, Ph.D. trainee in Microbiology. The title of her talk was Burglary at bakery: What do virus do in our cell?
2nd Place: Yue Zhang, Ph.D. trainee in Behavioral Neuroscience. The title of her talk was The brain that forgot its arm.
2nd Place: Sandra Cutts, Ph.D. trainee in Environmental Engineering. The title of her talk was Brownfields a.k.k recycling of land.