Three Minute Thesis (3MT) will return to Washington State University’s annual Showcase. This year’s 3MT will take place on Wednesday, March 25 at 1:00 p.m. in the Spark Atrium. Prizes, in the form of travel awards for research conferences, will be $3,000 for the winner, $1,500 for second place and $500 for third.
Xinyue (Sheena) Dong, a doctoral student from the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, won last year’s contest, in which doctoral students present their research/scholarship concisely – in no more than three minutes – to a non-specialist audience.
“Three Minute Thesis is one of Academic Showcase’s premiere events,” President Kirk Schulz said. “Today more than ever, it’s vital that researchers everywhere, including for WSU, are able to communicate their work in a way that is understandable to the general public. This competition gives our doctoral candidates the chance to take their complex research and communicate it in a way that is concise and easy to understand.”
Each college, or campus, that wants to send a representative to the main event, hosts its own event first. The winners from the respective events then qualify for the university-wide competition. This year, the following have already committed to participating:
- Carson College of Business
- College of Arts and Sciences
- College of Agriculture, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences
- College of Education
- College of Nursing
- College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
- College of Veterinary Medicine
- Murrow College of Communication
- Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture
- WSU Vancouver
3MT began at the University of Queensland (Australia) in 2008. In spring 2014, the WSU College of Education hosted the first 3MT event at WSU; in 2015, the contest expanded to all colleges.
