![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/3mt-2023-header.png)
About UC Faculty Heats
The 2024 University of Canberra Three Minute Thesis heats will be held live in-person, on campus from late June 2024.
Competitors must register before 21 June in the "Register to Compete" button.
You do not need to register to attend as part of the audience, just show up on the day to support our competitors!
Six competitors from across all heats will progress to the UC Final, to be held live in-person, on campus on Thursday 12 September.
Heat 1
- Faculty of Science & Technology
- Faculty of Health
- Friday 28 June, 1.00pm to 4.00pm
- Venue: 2B07
Heat 2
- Combined heat for Faculty of Arts and Design, Faculty of Education, and Faculty of Business, Government & Law
- Tuesday 2 July, 1.00pm to 3.30pm
- Venue: 12B50
- 28 June — UC Heat 1 (Faculty of SciTech; Faculty of Health)
- 2 July — UC Heat 2 (Combined heat: FAD, Faculty of Education, Faculty of BGL)
- 5 August — Registrations open to be part of UC Final audience
- 19 August — People’s Choice voting opens
- 1 September — People’s Choice voting closes
- 12 September — UC 3MT Final
- 8 October — Asia-Pacific 3MT Semi-Final Showcase
- 21 October — Asia-Pacific 3MT Final Showcase
- 30 October — Asia-Pacific 3MT Final (online)
![UC Capitals UC Capitals](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/uc 3mt training-1.jpg)
Workshop: Preparing your 3MT pitch
Presented by Professor Bernie Bisset and 2023 3MT finalist, Tayne Ryall. This workshop was presented on Monday 3 June.
![UC7s UC7s](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/uc 3mt training-3.jpg)
Workshop: Pitching for funding
Perfect your elevator pitch and get competition-ready with Irene Zhang from Canberra Innovation Network.
This workshop was presented on Thursday 13 June
![UC7s UC7s](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/uc 3mt training-4.jpg)
Workshop: Presenting your research with confidence
Presented by Hugh Kearns (iThinkWell)
This webinar will provide a clear step-by-step structure that you can use again and again to give high quality presentations.
Thursday 20 June 1:00pm – 3:00pm, online
![Brumbies Brumbies](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/uc 3mt training-2.jpg)
Interview with 3MT 2023 finalists
Three of our previous finalists share what participating in 3MT® was like and how training and competing have benefitted their research.
The below activities are in-person and compulsory for all UC 3MT Finalists. Finalists will receive a calendar invitation in early July.
Please save the date in your calendar now if you intend to compete, and you’re eligible to proceed to the final.
![Canberra United Canberra United](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/uc 3mt compulsory activities-4.jpg)
Monday 29 July
Group coaching session
Present your 3MT pitch to a panel of coaches and receive individual and group feedback. This will help you to take your presentation to the next level before it is professionally recorded
![Canberra Raiders Canberra Raiders](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/uc 3mt compulsory activities-5.jpg)
Tuesday 6 August
Recording Your Presentation
UC Media Team will professional record your 3MT presentation for the People's Choice Award public vote. Your presentation will be published on the UC 3MT website.
![Canberra Chill Canberra Chill](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/uc 3mt compulsory activities-2.jpg)
Wednesday 7 August
Media Skills for Researchers
How to boost your public profile and prepare for media opportunities such as radio and print-media interviews
![Canberra Cavalry Canberra Cavalry](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/uc 3mt compulsory activities-1.jpg)
Wednesday 14 August
Final Group Coaching Session
This is your final opportunity to polish your pitch and 3MT slide ahead of the live final!
![UniSport UniSport](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/uc 3mt compulsory activities-3.jpg)
Thursday 12 September
UC 3MT Final
All finalists will present their 3MT pitch on-stage to a live audience.
Finalists must be available from the early afternoon for tech rehearsal ahead of the event.
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 pitch![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/cherry-wang.jpg)
Cherry 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 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 pitchSara Chica-Latorre
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 pitchSenada Meskin
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 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 pitch![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/cherry-wang.jpg)
Cherry 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 pitch![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC3MT-finals-2023-2.jpg)
![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC3MT-finals-2023-3.jpg)
![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC3MT-finals-2023-4.jpg)
![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC3MT-finals-2023-5.jpg)
![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC3MT-finals-2023-8.jpg)
![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC3MT-finals-2023-7.jpg)
![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC3MT-finals-2023-6.jpg)
![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC3MT-finals-2023-9.jpg)
![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC3MT-finals-2023-1.jpg)
Judges
![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/Hala Batainah.jpg)
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.![](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/Peter Copeman.jpg)
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 Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia.
Competitors must explain their research and convince the judges and audience of its significance in no more than three minutes for a chance to win the $4,000 first place prize, $2,000 for the runner up, and $1,000 people’s choice prize. The winner of the UC Final will progress to the Asia-Pacific semi-final.
Please read the below information and resources carefully and attend the training opportunities to maximise your chances of success in this competition!
At the University of Canberra, competitors must present live and in person at both the heat and final competition stages. The University will create a video recording of each finalist’s presentation between the faculty heat and the university final. This video recording will be accessible on the UC 3MT 2024 competition webpage for:
- Public voting for the People’s Choice Award
- Submission UC Winner’s presentation to the University of Queensland for the Asia-Pacific Semi-Final stage
You can see examples of the 2023 pre-recorded presentation videos on the UC 3MT 2023 Competition webpage
UQ Resources
You’ll find a range of important guidelines and resources on the University of Queensland 3MT competitor guide webpage. We also encourage you to view past winning pitches and read the judging criteria and competition rules.
Active PhD and Professional Doctorate Research (program composed of at least 2/3 research and eligible for RTP) candidates who have successfully passed their confirmation milestone (including candidates whose thesis is under submission) by the date of their first virtual presentation are eligible to participate in 3MT competitions at all levels, including the Asia-Pacific 3MT competition. Graduates are not eligible.
Please Note: Students enrolled in any of the following programs, while welcome to participate in their Faculty Heat, are not eligible to progress to the UC Final or the Asia-Pacific 3MT Competition:
- Masters by Research
- Professional Doctorate (less than 2/3 research)
- Presentations are limited to 3 minutes and competitors exceeding 3 minutes are disqualified.
- Presentations are considered to have commenced when a presenter starts their presentation through speech (in the case of pre-recorded presentations, timing does not include the 3MT title slide and commences from when the competitor starts speaking, not the start of the video).
- A single static slide is permitted in the presentation (no slide transitions, animations or ‘movement’ of any description). This can be visible continuously, or ‘cut to’ (as many times as you like) for a maximum of 1 minute.
- For virtual presentations, the 3 minute audio must be continuous – no sound edits or breaks.
- No additional props (e.g. costumes, musical instruments, laboratory equipment and animated backgrounds) are permitted within the recording. Presentations are to be spoken word (e.g. no poems, raps or songs).
- No additional electronic media (e.g. sound and video files) are permitted within the video recording.
- The decision of the adjudicating panel is final.
- Submissions via video format (only video link provided to Event Coordinators). Files sent in other formats will not be accepted.
Judging will focus on the presentation, ability to communicate research to a non-specialist audience, and 3MT PowerPoint slide.
At every level of the competition each competitor will be assessed on the judging criteria listed below. Each criterion is equally weighted and has an emphasis on audience.
Comprehension and content
- Presentation provided clear motivation, background and significance to the research question
- Presentation clearly described the research strategy/design and the results/findings of the research
- Presentation clearly described the conclusions, outcomes and impact of the research
Engagement and communication
- The oration was delivered clearly, and the language was appropriate for a non-specialist audience
- The PowerPoint slide was well-defined and enhanced the presentation
- The presenter conveyed enthusiasm for their research and captured and maintained the audience’s attention
People’s choice voting will open at 10am on Monday 19 August and close at midnight Sunday 1 September. Finalists and Faculty are encouraged to share the videos across their networks. These videos increase awareness of the range of research being undertaken at the University of Canberra.
The finalist with the highest number of unique votes at the end of the voting period will receive the people’s choice award and prize money at the UC Final.
- Thursday 12 September
- 5.30pm to 8.30pm
- 6 finalists will progress to the final from the Faculty heats
- Registrations to attend will open in August 2024
The University of Canberra 3MT Final will be an in-person only event and will held on campus. This event will include a networking reception. Along with the invited guest list there will be public tickets available. Registration to be part of the UC 3MT Final audience will open in August 2024.
There will be photography and videography at the event used for promotional purposes.
Finalists will have their video pitch professionally filmed in early August, along with a professional head shot taken for promotional use on the UC 3MT webpage and social media. This video will be used for people’s choice voting and will also be the video sent to University of Queensland for the Asia Pacific semi-final entry.
Prize money awarded at the UC 3MT Final will be through journal transfer to a cost-centre accessible to the individual prize winner. These funds may be used in the same manner as other HDR student funds, except that prize money must be acquitted in the year that is awarded. A candidate can nominate to receive their prize money either in the month following the UC Final OR in January the following year; this decision must be made no later than two weeks after the UC Final.
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!
The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia.
![Contact the Graduate Research office about 2023 3MT Contact the Graduate Research office about 2023 3MT](/content/dam/uc/imagery/services/3mt/UC 3mt main page - footer-2024.png)