The Yale 3-Minute Thesis Competition challenges Ph.D. students to describe their thesis work clearly and engagingly in just 3 minutes! On April 14th we invited the Yale community to cheer on this year’s 10 finalists in this live celebration of Ph.D. research. At the Sudler Recital Hall event, finalists delivered their presentations live to both an in-person and virtual audience of more than 350.
During the event, Julia Istomina (Associate Director of the Graduate Writing Lab) announced recipients of the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning’s Public Communications Certificate, including 6 of our 2023 finalists! In addition, members of the audience were invited to cast their votes to select winners for two People’s Choice awards.
This year’s esteemed panel of judges included:
- Lynn Cooley (PhD, Chemistry) – Dean, Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, C.N.H. Long Professor of Genetics and Professor of Cell Biology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
- Kim Boehm (’92 PhD, American Studies) – President, UC San Diego Alumni Board of Directors; Board Member, Catalyst of San Diego & Imperial Counties, LEAD San Diego, and Reality Changers; Former Provost and Dean of the Faculty, Mills College
- Katherine Cohen (’97 PhD, Spanish & Portuguese) – CEO and Founder, IvyWise
- Bert Eshaghpour (’79 PhD, Chemistry) – President, Wego Chemical Group LP
- David Sanchez (’84 MPhil, Political Science) – CEO, Sanchez Global LLC; Managing Director, Zanbato Securities
Meet the 2023 3MT Winners
First Place & People’s Choice Award: Best in STEM – Sateja Paradkar (Pathology): Investigating the Role of PARG in Cancer Drug Resistance
Second Place – Elizabeth Woo (Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program): The Brain’s Calcium Problem and a “GLO”-wing Solution
Third Place – Zili Shen (Astronomy): Finding the Biggest Dwarf Galaxies in Our Cosmic Neighborhood
People’s Choice Award: Best in Humanities & Social Sciences – Kathryn Graves (Psychology): Minds in Motion: How the Human Brain Gives Rise to Real-World Navigation
You can view all of our finalists’ videos via the Office of Career Strategy YouTube channel.
Yale’s 3-Minute Thesis Competition is sponsored by the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Yale Graduate School Alumni Association. It is a collaboration between the offices of the Poorvu Center for Teaching & Learning, the Graduate Writing Lab, Graduate Student Life, the Office for Graduate Student Development & Diversity, and the Office of Career Strategy.
Yale’s competition is modeled on the 3-Minute Thesis Competition founded by the University of Queensland.
