Graduate students from universities across Western Canada came together yesterday (April 18) to compete in the ultimate fast-paced research competition.
For the first time, the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) hosted the prestigious Three Minute Thesis Western Regional Competition.
Topics ranged from gene and cell therapies for diabetes, helping bears one simulation at a time, effects of gender stereotypes on women’s competence and participation in physical activity, and even the sex appeal of mouse pee.
The hard part? Competitors had to distill their entire research projects into a bite-sized and digestible three-minute presentation.
“When I was a graduate student I thought my work was far too important to speak about in just three minutes and only now do I realize that your work is so important that you must talk about it in three minutes so that more people can hear it and more people can know about what you do,” said UNBC President Dr. Daniel Weeks at the start of the competition, which was held at the Wood Innovation and Design Centre.
“That shortness of time is what makes it important, not the length of time,” added Weeks.
Congratulations to all 17 graduate students who competed in today's Western Regional 3 Minute Thesis Competition at UNBC. Your presentations on your research were outstanding! 1/3 pic.twitter.com/QCfSP04oPe
— University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) (@UNBC) April 17, 2019
UNBC’s own Jennifer Coburn competed in the competition presenting her thesis on gender studies titled “The girl push up: the effects of gender stereotypes of women’s competence and participation in physical activity”
Judging consisted of five panellists from the community, who had the difficult task of ranking the top three presentations on communication, comprehension, and engagement.
But after an incredible amount of intelligence and creativity was displayed in 17 three-minute chunks, the judges landed on the top three winners.
Third place went to Simon Fraser University’s Elana Varner whose topic was how the sex appeal of mouse pee safeguards wildlife.
Second place went to the University of Alberta’s Annapoorna Shruthi Subramanya whose topic was in chemical engineering titled “Partial Upgrading: A quest to unclog the arteries of Canada's oil sands Economy”.
Finally, first place went to the University of B.C.’s Adam Ramzy, whose topic was gene and cell therapies for diabetes.
Three Minute Thesis competitions were first created by Professor Alan Lawson at the University of Queensland, Australia in 2008, to celebrate exciting and innovative graduate student research while promoting communication, public speaking, and story-telling skills.
Since then, it’s grown, and Canada now has the Western Regional Competition as well as the Ontario and Eastern Regional competitions.
As the winner of the Western Regional Competition, Ramzy will now move onto to the national competition on June 3.
