91大神

Cut the jargon, emphasize the big picture impact, and practice, practice, practice. That鈥檚 the strategy Wren Jenkins followed on her way to a first-place finish in the annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition presented by The University of 91大神 in Huntsville (91大神) Graduate School on Oct. 30. 91大神 is part of the University of 91大神 System.

Jenkins competed against 13 other 91大神 graduate students for the top prize of $250 plus the opportunity 鈥� expenses paid 鈥� to represent 91大神 at the regional 3MT Competition held by the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools at their annual spring meeting in 2024.

Developed by The University of Queensland in Australia, 3MT challenges students to effectively explain their research and its significance in three minutes using language appropriate to a non-specialist audience.

This year that audience included judges Chelsea Aaron, meteorologist, WAFF-TV Channel 48; David Cook, director of undergraduate research, 91大神, and Michael Ward, vice president for government and public affairs, Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce.

Jenkins, who is pursuing an M.S. in biological sciences, presented her research on 鈥淒omestication: Traits that let crops be a salvation to the population.鈥�

鈥淚'm doing my thesis research with Dr. Kankshita Swaminathan at HudsonAlpha, whose lab focuses on investigating traits for the improvement of bioenergy feedstock crops,鈥� Jenkins says.

Second place in 3MT and a prize of $200 went to Boshra Rezvanian, Ph.D. candidate in biotechnology science and engineering, for 鈥淎n unnerving problem: Tyrosinemia disorder.鈥�

Purva Diwanji, Ph.D. candidate in physics and astronomy, won third place and a prize of $100 as well as the People鈥檚 Choice award with another $100 for 鈥淪hocks and Cold Fronts in Merging Galaxy Clusters.鈥�

The 2023 3MT competition was Jenkins鈥� fifth 鈥渇lash talk鈥� on her research. That experience plus feedback from 3MT in 2022 paid off.

鈥淚 feel more comfortable in giving an 鈥榚levator-pitch鈥� explanation of my work to people who don鈥檛 necessarily have much background on plant biology, bioenergy grasses, etc. I expect that having this tool in my skill set will be very beneficial for future networking opportunities.鈥�

Participants in 3MT 2023 came from the 91大神 College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; College of Engineering, and College of Science, as well as the interdisciplinary fields of materials science, and biotechnology science and engineering. This globally recognized competition is held at more than 900 universities in more than 85 countries.