Congratulations to our winners!
The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia.
Thank you to all who attended our live final on Thursday 31 August. It was a fantastic evening!
Huge congratulations to our winners
- Major prize: Senada Meskin (Faculty of Arts and Design)
- Runner-up: Sara Chica Latorre (Faculty of Health)
- People’s Choice Award: Sara Chica Latorre
Special thanks to all our finalists, judges, MC, and UC Media Team for making this such a memorable event.
This year’s all-female finale saw seven Higher Degree by Research (HDR) candidates, representing four of the University’s five faculties, pitch their thesis in three minutes or less for prizes and the opportunity to represent the University at the Asia-Pacific Semi-Final at the University of Queensland in September.
Senada Meskin, Major Prize Winner
Senada Meskin
Faculty of Arts and Design
Australian Muslim Women and Paid Work!
Senada is an international research student, a mother of three, a university employee, and a visibly Muslim woman. Each of those identities was, at some point, a part of the academic inquiry. If, however, we intersect two or more of those identities, we would encounter a whole new world. Senada’s thesis investigates the severely under-researched phenomenon of how it feels to be a Muslim woman in Australia as well as an employee in a competitive industry.
View pitchSara Chica-Latorre, Runner-up and People's Choice Winner
Sara Chica-Latorre
Faculty of Health
Tackling a bloody problem for women in sport
Sara feels fortunate to combine her biggest passions – research, exercise, and nutrition – as she investigates the management of menstrual symptoms in sportswomen through diet, aspiring to make a positive difference for women in sports research. Sara graduated from ANU in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science (Hons). She spent two years working in research, and four year working in the health, fitness, and vocational education sectors. In 2021 Sara completed a Master’s in Nutrition and Dietetics and commenced her PhD at the University of Canberra.
View pitchCheck out our #UC3MT finalists for 2023.
Ayrin Assadimoghadam
Ayrin Assadimoghadam
Faculty of Arts and Design
How can a building's façade learn from nature?
Ayrin’s research intersects across architecture, sustainability, and efficiency. Her 3MT Pitch is about adaptive facade strategy and its potential for optimising building façade performance for energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Ayrin’s research highlights current gaps in applying adaptive façades through building codes, principles, and guidelines for high-rise residential buildings. In these cases, optimised design frameworks and adaptive façade strategies could have significant environmental advantages, especially in countries with high solar coverage like Australia.
View pitchKithmini Aviruppola
Kithmini Aviruppola
Faculty of Education
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Unveiling the Path to Equitable University Education
Kithmini’s research promotes equity in education to ensure that all students have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Kithmini’s research is searching for effective measures to close the opportunity gap between the privileged and the underprivileged students, ensuring that all students are given the chance to succeed.
View pitchKeira Bai
Keira Bai
Faculty of Science and Technology
From Hidden Tears to Genuine Smiles
Micro-expressions are almost undetectable to the human naked eye, but they can be the key to understanding concealed human emotions. Keira’s research leverages deep learning neural networks in the detection and recognition of micro-expressions to decipher human emotional states. Keira believes that studying the nuances of micro-expressions, no matter how subtle, is the key for harnessing the power of AI to improve human outcomes, particularly early and accurate diagnosis for clinical depression.
View pitchTayne Ryall
Tayne Ryall
Faculty of Health
Peer pressure in health training – we need more of it!
Tayne has worked as an acute care physiotherapist since 2005 and completed her Master of Health Professional Education in 2014. Tayne worked as the clinical educator in the Acute Physiotherapy Department at Canberra Hospital from 2015-2020. Tayne’s research investigates simulation as a training and assessment tool. Moreover, it determines if simulation can improve students’ work-readiness and predict their clinical performance on work-integrated learning placements.
View pitchCherry Wang
Cherry Wang
Faculty of Science and Technology
A Journey Towards Empathetic AI: Investigating a Computational Model for Text-based Empathetic Response Generation
By bridging the gap between AI and human emotions, Cherry’s research holds the potential to enhance human-computer interactions in a more empathetic manner. Her research revolves around designing a dialogue agent that combines large language models with psychological theories. Her goal is to create dialogue agent that can understand and respond to emotions in a supportive and contextually appropriate manner, akin to interacting with a compassionate friend.
View pitchJudges
Hala Batainah
Hala Batainah
Principal Coach and Founder, Humanosity; Chair, Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN)
Hala Batainah is a business leader with over 25 years of experience in executive leadership. Hala has experience in the information, communications, and technology industry and has served in senior executive roles for IBM and Microsoft. She is the Chair of CBRIN, an organisation focused on supporting innovation and entrepreneurship. Through her coaching work at Huminosity, Hala is dedicated to supporting executive leaders and their teams to improving their communication for stand-out results.Peter Copeman
Peter Copeman
Adjunct Professional Associate, Faculty of Education, University of Canberra
Before retiring in 2020 from full-time employment at UC, Peter was a multi-award-winning Senior Teaching Fellow in the Learning and Teaching unit, where he convened the Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education course, mentored colleagues to achieve HEA Fellowships, co-led projects such as Indigenisation of the Curriculum program, represented UC on multiple cross-institutional projects including the award-winning Contemporary Approaches to University Teaching MOOC, supervised doctoral students and taught skills for research communication including 3MT. In his adjunct role, he has continued postgraduate supervision, HEA Fellowship mentoring, curriculum Indigenisation, and research communication training.Arvind Reddy
Arvind Reddy
Manager, Research Grants, Research & Enterprise Portfolio, University of Canberra
Arvind Reddy is an experienced research management professional. He has led the research grants team at UC for over seven years. Arvind regularly assists academics to review and assess their grant applications, providing strategic advice for the best chance of success. Arvind has over 15 years’ experience in the engineering industry, working with governments, industry and not-for-profits in renewable energy and climate change sectors.The HDR Development team would like to thank a few dedicated and talented people, without whom the 2023 UC Three Minute Thesis Final would not be possible.
To our MC Associate Professor Leonie Pearson and judges Hala Batainah, Dr Peter Copeman, and Arvind Reddy for so generously donating their time, expertise, and insights for this event.
To Associate Professor Bernie Bissett . for providing pitch training in the lead up to the faculty heats and coaching with the finalists. Thank you for your energy and enthusiasm to help our finalists elevate their pitches to new heights.
To our faculties for organising the Faculty Heats during Research Festival which generated excitement for the competition and encouraged students at all stages to participate.
To the UC Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise, Professor Lucy Johnston, for providing financial and event support.
Profound thanks to various teams across the university for their collaborative support:
- UC Web Team for putting the 2023 webpage together
- UC Design Team for designing all our 2023 UC3MT print and digital collateral
- UC Media Team for producing the finalists’ pitch videos and profile photos, event photography and videography, and social media promotion
Lastly, and most importantly, thank you to all the competitors in the heats and our finalists for taking part in this event and helping to make it a success – without you, there is no 3MT event!