By Ethan Quinn
10 Carolina graduate students challenged themselves to present complex research findings to a general audience in under three minutes.
Carolina graduate students spend years toiling away on research projects. They become experts in their fields, finding answers to questions at the heart of society’s most pressing challenges. The result is often hundreds of pages of academic writing that would take hours to explain. This fall, 10 students challenged themselves to do that in just three minutes.
The Three Minute Thesis is an academic competition in which graduate students explain their research in under three minutes in a way that is accessible to a nonexpert audience. These constraints help the students foster their presentation skills, and they give the audience a window into the research that grad students are engaged in across campus.
The competition awards prizes for first and second place, decided by a panel of judges, and for the “People’s Choice” presentation, decided by a vote of the audience.
Dean of The Graduate School Beth Mayer-Davis opened the event by praising the 10 finalists for their impactful research.
“Graduate students play an essential role in generating and implementing the new knowledge we need to solve the world’s greatest challenges,” she said. “These students will go on to become leaders in their fields who move our society forward.”
Nicole Rose Lukesh, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in pharmaceutical sciences, won the first-place prize for her presentation “From Twisties to Triumph: Rewriting Immune Responses in Multiple Sclerosis Treatment.” In her research, Lukesh developed a therapy that helped animals with multiple sclerosis regain movement by stopping the immune system from attacking their brain and spine.
She hopes that this exercise in communicating complex scientific concepts to a general audience will support her goal of serving resource-limited areas by designing and advocating for affordable vaccines.
“To reach these areas, communication is the first step. And not just to scientists, but to a wide range of people,” she said. “Being able to distill the information is very important.”
Fernando Quijano, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in organizational behavior at Kenan–Flagler Business School, won second place for his presentation “Spousal Competence and The Invisible Family Load: Outcomes for Women’s Careers.” He illustrated his findings using the example of Marty Ginsburg, whose assumption of household duties enabled his wife, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to ascend to the pinnacle of the legal profession.
Quijano found the exercise of succinctly articulating his research so valuable that he hopes to incorporate it into a symposium on fatherhood research he is organizing.
“I think it’s beneficial both to those in the audience and the presenter,” he said. “It makes you think differently about how your research impacts others and how you can get that point across.”
Ike Emerson, a fifth-year doctoral candidate in biochemistry and biophysics, won the “People’s Choice” prize for his presentation “The Spark of Cardiac Sex Differences.” He said the competition’s requirements helped improve his ability to communicate about his research.
“People publish scientific papers, but those papers are super inaccessible,” Emerson said. “I think it’s really important for the future of science to find better ways to expand the audience base so that anybody can understand it, because there’s more misinformation going around now than ever before. It’s critical that these studies that are funded by taxpayer dollars can be accessible to the people that are paying for them.”
Serving as emcee for the event was Charlie Tuggle, the John H. Stembler Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Hussman School of Journalism. Tuggle introduced each finalist, entertained the crowd during judge deliberations, and took in the presentations along with the rest of the audience. A professional communicator, he appreciates the value of efficient communication.
“You don’t always have an hour to explain your research in-depth to get someone interested, you have to do it in a short period of time,” Tuggle said.
“I’m all about presentation. Just because you build it or just because you write it, that doesn’t mean anyone’s going to pay attention to it. You have to be able to make the sale.”