The final round for this year’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition was held on Thursday, November 9 at 2:30pm in the Virginia Dare room of the Alumni House. The challenge for these ten finalists was to convey the essence and importance of their master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation research in an engaging way to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes and with one PowerPoint slide.

The top ten finalists were:

Austin Gray, Biology – Antibiotics in Urban and Rural Streams of North Carolina
Durga Manjari Arvapalli, Nanoscience – Turmeric Tagged Carbon Nanoparticles for Cancer Treatment
Valerie Fricault, Biology – Can Nanoparticles Affect Genes for Generations?
Brian Cone, Kinesiology – Where Fall Prevention Went Wrong
Leslie Locklear, Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations – The Stories of Lumbee Tribal Youth
Chelsea Smith, Biology – Is Roundup Harming more than Just Weeds?
Oliver Thomas, Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations – Cultivating Agents of Social Change
Kelly King, Counseling and Educational Development – Setting the stage for culturally responsive counseling: An experimental investigation of broaching race and racism in the initial counseling session
Taylor Mabe, Nanoscience – Portable sensors for disease diagnostics.
Maggie Kelly, English – Mourning through Murder: the role of psychic mimesis in Renaissance revenge tragedies

The judges for the final round of the competition were: Representative Sarah Stevens; Paul Dumas, Public API Platforms and Innovation at Market America; Chris Laney, President and CEO of Zenergy Technologies; and Ruthie Tutterow, Director of Fine and Performing Arts at Greensboro Day School. The judges’ task of determining the winners was indeed a difficult one. After tallying the scores and counting the ballots submitted by the audience for the People’s Choice Award, the following students were announced as the competition winners:

First Place and $1,000: Taylor Mabe, Nanoscience
Second Place and $500: Brian Cone, Kinesiology
People’s Choice Award and $250: Leslie Locklear, Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations

As this year’s first place winner, Taylor Mabe, will represent UNCG in the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools’ regional 3MT competition in Fayetteville, AR in February.

Congratulations to all of the finalists and to the winners on a job well done!