Grad students compete in Three Minute Thesis event

UIC graduate students (from left) Trinh Lam, Juan Maldonado Weng and Vinoad Nair Das, with Graduate College Dean Karen Colley.

UIC graduate students participated in the Graduate College’s third annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland, Australia.

The competition supports student’s capacity to effectively explain their research in three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience. They must condense their research into a brief, engaging presentation, using a single presentation slide. Students enrolled in either a Master’s or Ph.D. program with an original research project were able to compete.

Twelve finalists were selected to compete on March 14 at Student Center East. The first-place winner will represent UIC at the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools Conference March 21-22 in St. Louis, Missouri.

2019 Winners

First-Place Winner & People’s Choice Award:

Vinoad Nair Das, Department of Psychology

“Who Gets to Graduate?”

Second-Place Winner:

Juan Maldonado Weng, Department Anatomy and Cell Biology

“The effects of sex and the APOE gene on the gut microbiome in an Alzheimer’s Disease mouse model.”

Third-Place Winner:

Trinh Lam, Department of Bioengineering

“Femtoliter Droplet Confinement of Streptococcus pneumoniae: Bacterial Genetic Transformation in Droplet.”