In 2008, the University of Queensland started the 3-minute thesis competition, in which advanced doctoral students are challenged to summarize their dissertation research for a non-specialist audience in three minutes. As they put it on the 3-MT website,
An 80,000 word thesis would take 9 hours to present.
Their time limit… 3 minutes
UConn has sponsored a local 3-minute thesis competition since the fall of 2013. Each year we send a video recording of the winner of our local competition to a “virtual” competition sponsored by Universitas 21. Judges in the international competition award a first prize and a highly commended prize. In addition, visitors to the U21 website can vote for their favorite presentation, with the presentation receiving the highest number of votes being given the Peoples Choice award. More than 3400 votes were cast in this year’s competition, and I’m delighted to report that Islam Mosa, a PhD student in Chemistry at UConn, is the 2016 People’s Choice award winner. Take three minutes of your time and watch his presentation below. You will be inspired.