On Saturday, April 16, 46 graduate students representing 30 different majors and programs from across the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus competed in the inaugural Three-Minute Thesis competition. This event, started in 2008 by The University of Queensland, is now held at nearly 200 universities around the world, 95 of which are in the U.S.
Graduate students must explain their master’s or doctoral research in three minutes or less, with the aid of only a single PowerPoint slide. This is quite a challenge considering it would take a person two hours to read out loud an average master’s thesis manuscript and about six and a half hours to read out loud an average doctoral dissertation manuscript.
Dean of Graduate Education Krystyna Aune sought to bring this competition to UH Mānoa to give graduate students an opportunity to further develop their communication skills and share their research with the campus and the public.
“graduate students and the research that they produce are exciting, innovative and absolutely central to the mission of our research university,“ emphasized Aune.
Competition winners
Samuel Tassi Yunga, a doctoral candidate in tropical medicine, medical microbiology and pharmacology, was the first place and people’s choice winner (chosen by audience members). Yunga won over the judges and the audience with his passionate speech about his travels to Cameroon, West Africa, to collect blood samples and track newborns, both prior to and after birth to determine the effects of malaria parasite infections.
Second place winner was Liang Shi, a doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering. Her analysis of driverless vehicles and its effect on traffic congestion captured the audience’s attention. Shi shared that she thought this event “would be a ‘Ted Talk’ experience” for her.
More about the Three-Minute Thesis competition
Participants are evaluated on their ability to convey the gist of their research questions and results in a manner that is understandable and engaging to an intelligent, but non-specialist audience, while avoiding trivializing their research.
“This can be quite intimidating, both intellectually and communication-wise. We are very proud that our graduate students willingly embraced this,” said Professor Amy Hubbard, chair of the steering committee and chair of the Department of Communicology.
Twenty-eight UH faculty had the difficult task of judging the preliminary rounds. The final round judges—who included the UH Mānoa chancellor, two UH regents, a retired associate justice of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, a longtime Hawaiʻi developer and entertainer, a National Academy of Science member and a director for Soroptimist International Founder Region Fellowship—decided on the overall winners.
The UH Mānoa Office of Graduate Education intends to hold this competition annually.
