Student Union | Photo by Monica Brutto | The Wright State Guardian
Wright State University masters and doctoral students present and compete in a new research competition hosted by new graduate school.
Competition
The 3MT (Three Minute Thesis) is a trademarked event that the University of Queensland created.
The WSU competition, on Tuesday Feb. 22, began with a warm welcome from University President, Sue Edwards, congratulating students for the hard work on theses and dissertations, recalling Edwards’s own research on hagfish.
Shu Schiller, interim dean of the College of Graduate Programs and Honors Studies, then introduced the graduate students who presented on everything from sunburn to leadership techniques.
People involved in planning, researching and judging
Schiller led the planning and operations of the event; however, Provost Amy Thompson is the original individual who pushed for the revival of the competition at WSU.
The Faculty Graduate Student Affairs Committee and the Graduate and Honors Student Advisory Board members provided additional support.
Judges, including Andrew Beauchamp, chair and professor of the College of Business, and Madhavi Kadakia, vice provost for Research and Innovation, gave a score to each student after the conclusion of the student’s three minute presentation about respective research
Contestant experience
William Cvammen took home the first place $400 cash prize. Cvammen now has the opportunity to compete at the 3MT Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools Conference, at the end of March, in Chicago.
Cvammen research concerns about the circadian clock, DNA repair, DNA damage and correlation between the two to establish and define preventative and therapeutic measures for highly susceptible individuals to be likened to other DNA stressors.
“Trying to condense four years worth of work into three minutes is about how I imagined it went for the majority of us. Other than that, it was really just reassuring yourself that you’re antiquated with the work that you’re doing,” Cvammen said.
Cvammen plans to use the cash prize towards a personal upcoming wedding.
Two second-place winners, Shikshita Singh and Cassidy Alspaugh, won $300 each. Three third-place winners, Ryanne Cimatu, Mia Williams Burnett and Peter Swartz, won $200 each.
The People’s Choice Awardee and winner of $150 was Vamshi Beemanapalli. This award, which the 3MT audience chose, did not include judge scoring.
The future of 3MT
This event will continue as an annual event, according to Schiller.
“We will promote this event broadly and widely to all graduate students and hope to attract more submissions. We will also encourage more students from social sciences to participate,” Schiller said.
Participant Marilyn Kindig Stahl researched aims to improve learning and teaching, emphasizing cooperation between students in the school of medicine. Stahl, a physician in the OB/GYN department at WSU’s Boonshoft School of Medicine and masters student in interactive design for digital learning, reflected on the experience.
“[Students] had a tremendous growth because they interacted with other students giving their research topics, and then they taught each other how their research went with their patients’ needs,” Kindig Stahl said.
