Ruvindu Perera, a graduate student in the Cell and Molecular Biology program, won first place at this year's 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) finale Nov. 13 hosted by the Graduate School and International Education, which challenges graduate students to present a simple and compelling speech about their research and its significance in just three minutes.

Perera won for his research project titled "Developing a Vaccine to Prevent Lameness in Broiler Chickens," while Mostafa Mahmoudi from the Chemistry program won second place for his project, "Bringing the Lab to the Tap: 3D-Printed Electrochemical Detection of Toxic Metals." Additionally, Harneet Kaur from Cell and Molecular Biology won the People's Choice Award for "Tiny Lights, Big Impact: Safer Quantum Dots for Detecting Disease Early." Perera's advisers are Adnan Alrubaye and Palmy Jesudhasan. Mahmoudi's adviser is Martin Edwards, and Kaur's adviser is Colin Heyes.

For winning first place, Perera won a $1,000 cash prize and a trip to Greenville, South Carolina, to compete in the regional competition. Mahmoudi and Kaur won $750 and $500 cash prizes, respectively.

Perera, Mahmoudi and Kaur won prizes following a competition that included more than 30 graduate students competing across three rounds. The first round, held Oct. 16, narrowed the competition to 20 students, and the second round, held Oct. 30, determined 10 finalists who competed at the finale.

"Although this competition has been a reoccurring event for a couple of years now, it was my first time to experience 3MT and witness how dedicated our graduate students are to their fields," said Julia Smith, associate director of graduate student support and coordinator of the competition. "As an R1 institution, we all know that there is a great amount of research happening on our campus that is positively impacting our communities, but 3MT really allowed us to see what is being conducted on an individual level."

Judges for the final round were Cynthia Sides, assistant vice chancellor of research and innovation; David Hinton, associate vice chancellor of research and innovation; and Michael Hevel, associate dean for research, strategy and outreach in the College of Education and Health Professions.

"To all of our competitors, you are producing amazing work, and I applaud you for being courageous enough to stand in front of an audience to present months and/or years of findings in just under three minutes," she continued. "To our judges, thank you for helping pull this off. We could not have done it without you! To our graduate students who did not compete this year, I hope that you will consider being a part of 3MT next year and letting us see what inspiring research you are doing."

The competition, which was created by The University of Queensland in Australia, helps students learn how to communicate clearly their academic and research endeavors in language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience. Graduate students are tasked with presenting their research in a tight timeframe with only one presentation image.