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The Graduate School. Pictured: View of MacCracken hall with sundial in the forefront

Three Minute Thesis Competition

An 80,000-word thesis would take 9 hours to present. Your time limit... 3 minutes!

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an exercise that develops academic, presentation, and research communication skills and supports the development of research students' capacity to effectively explain their research in three minutes in a language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience. It is hosted by the Graduate School every spring semester, and the 3MT® competition for 2019 will be held in March 2019.

Registration for the 2019 3MT® opens on November 2, 2018!

March 7th marked the 5th Annual 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) event for graduate students. Founded by the University of Queensland, the 3MT challenges students to explain an entire thesis project in just 180 seconds, using only one PowerPoint slide. This year, 20 Miami students from across the university presented their research on topics ranging from concussions, to spiders, to library revivals.

Frob Duguid, a master’s student in the Department of Kinesiology and Health, won the top prize of $1,000 and a chance to compete in the regional competition in Indianapolis. Duguid’s project, The Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Vascular Function During Sitting examined the effects of sedentary lifestyle and how to combat the vascular risks associated with sitting. Duguid concluded that brief amounts of exercise before sitting for long periods of time protects blood vessels in the legs. As the first place winner, Frob represented Miami at the Midwest Association of Graduate Schools regional 3MT competition and placed 2nd!

Rey Nann Mark Ducay, a master’s student in the Department of Statistics, won second place for his presentation, Big Data, Machine Learning and Taxicabs. Ducay used mass amounts of information from the New York City Taxicab system to study how computers learn from data and are able to make predictions about ride duration, pickup locations, and more.

Two student tied for third place. Jake Godfrey, a master’s student in the Department of Biology with his project, Impact of an Atrazine Based Herbicide on the Ground Dwelling Wolf Spider and Megan Loftin, a master’s student in the Department of Kinesiology and Health, for Former Team Sport Athletes’ Experiences of the Physical and Psychological Effects of Sport-related Concussion. After much deliberation, the three graduate alumni serving as judges generously donated additional funds for both students to walk away with a prize of $500.

Diane Berish, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology, was awarded the People’s Choice Award for her presentation, Hospital to Skilled-nursing Facility Transitional Care and 30-day Hospital Readmissions: Do Skilled-nursing Facility Transitional Care Practices Matter? Her work examined the effectiveness of the current healthcare system by evaluating the number of hospital readmissions. Using this data, she hopes to determine what forms of transitional care are best at diminishing the high number of hospital readmissions. The People’s Choice Award winner also receives a $1,000 prize.

A panel of alumni, former 3MT competitors, and Miami ambassadors acted as judges and awarded the top prizes. Judges included Renate Crawford, Caroline Kren, David Liles, Scott Madding, Kate Rousemaniere, Tanya Williard, and Valerie Robinson as an alternate.