Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is a research communication competition originally developed by The University of Queensland in 2008, and now has been widely adopted at universities around the world. The exercise challenges masters and doctoral students to present a compelling talk on their Thesis/Dissertation topic and its significance. Many theses and dissertations can be over 80,000 words and take hours to present, but students in this competition have just three minutes and one slide to convey their often highly-technical research to a lay audience.

Presentations are judged by two main criteria: comprehension/content and engagement. Did the presentation help the audience (who may have no background at all in the research area) understand the topic? Did the method of presentation make the audience want to know more?

The UT academic colleges and the Graduate School collaborate to bring the 3MT® experience to our university. The colleges selected participants to send to the semifinal competitions, which will take place during the last week in February 2020. Anyone preparing a master’s thesis, doctoral dissertation, or who play a major role in research-based projects (including case studies) was eligible to apply and be selected to participate.

The schedule for the 2020 3MT® Semi-Final Competitions is:

• February 25, 2:00pm–4:00pm—Hollingsworth Auditorium
• February 26, 2:00pm–4:00pm—220 Henson Hall
• February 26, 3:00pm–5:00pm—135 College of Law
• February 28, 11:00am–1:00pm—602 Haslam Business Building

Participant lists are forthcoming, so you can make sure you see your colleagues compete. Or, better yet, come to as many of them as you can!