These scholars won DSU’s inaugural 3-minute thesis competition

The Three-Minute Thesis (3MT), a competition developed at the University of Queensland in Australia in 2008 before being replicated at colleges and universities worldwide, came to Delaware State University (DSU) last week.

Organized by Cheryl Still and Dr. Terry Jeffries, the competition poses doctoral and master’s candidates with the challenge to present their theses — noting that an 80,000-word thesis would take nine hours to present — in only three minutes, while conveying their research in a way that can be understood by a non-specialist audience.

Fifteen students competed virtually with PowerPoint and oral presentations for 3MT. The participants’ presentations were judged on their enthusiasm, delivery and ease of explanation that made it understandable to anyone outside of their academic field.

The DSU judges were Dr. Jason Bourke, interim director of the Master of Public Administration program; Dr. Shelly Rouser, chair of the Department of Education; Dr. Qiquan Wang, associate professor of chemistry; and Dr. Brian McNaughton, a fellow in the Delaware Institute of Science and Technology.

Here are the winners and runners-up and their prizes, via DSU:

In the doctoral category, the winner was Lindsey Hyppolite, a chemistry Ph.D. candidate, whose thesis was “A Novel Synthetic Method of Chitosan Functionalized Liposomes as an Innovative Nano-Carrier for Chemotherapeutic Drugs.” Hyppolite won $250.

The runners-up were Chelsea Harris, a mathematics Ph.D. candidate, whose topic was “Computer-Aided Diagnosis Techniques using Sparse Representations,” and Schentel Jones, an education Ed.D. candidate, whose topic was “A Critical Factor in the Success of African American Male Students.” Harris won $150, while Jones won $100 and the People’s Choice award.

In the master’s category, the winner was LaToya Irvin, an agriculture M.S. student, whose top thesis was on “Investigating mechanisms that contribute to drought tolerance in Durum Wheat (Triticum durum).” She was also awarded $100 as the People’s Choice winner. Irvin won $250.

The runner-up was Yao Xia, a mathematics M.S. student, whose topic was “Simulation of interaction between laser and a single water microdroplet.”