An 80,000-word thesis would take 9 hours to present. Their challenge is to do it in 3 minutes!

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) celebrates the exciting research conducted by Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) and Professional Doctorate (Research) candidates. It is an international academic competition developed by the University of Queensland to cultivate students’ academic, presentation, and research communication skills.

You are invited to watch the faculty heats' winners battle it out in the UTS 3 Minute Thesis Finals, where you can vote in the People's Choice Award category.

With just three minutes to give a compelling presentation on their thesis topic and its significance, the 3MT competition encourages research candidates to consolidate their ideas and outline their research discoveries. It challenges them to tell the story of their research to a non-specialist audience: what they are doing, why it matters, and what they hope to achieve ... all in just three minutes!

The winners will receive $3,000 and represent UTS at the 2023 Virtual Asia-Pacific Competition against winners from other universities on 18 October 2023.

Meet the judges who will make the difficult decisions on the night;

Professor Hélène de Burgh-Woodman

Dean, Graduate Research School, UTS

Professor Hélène de Burgh-Woodman is the Dean of the Graduate Research School at University of Technology Sydney. Hélène is committed to the value of University research for the public good and to graduate research as a pathway to cultivating the requisite knowledge capital and innovation for tackling future wicked challenges and ensuring inter-generational social, economic and environmental sustainability. Having worked across European and Australian contexts, and in partnership with a range of disciplines, Hélène has an appreciation of the value of the disciplinary spectrum and the ways in which diverse research domains can realise globally impactful outcomes through collaboration. As a senior research and innovation leader, her experience across different research contexts has refined her belief in the integration of industry, universities and public structures as a catalyst for innovation, social development and responsiveness to emerging challenges.

Drew Smith, Managing Director, StudioPhro*

Drew is a strategist and storyteller who started out as a car designer. He helps clients transform their capabilities through becoming better connected to the world around them, with a focus on design research, strategy, and product and service development.

Professor Susan Morton

Director of INSIGHT, UTS

Professor Susan Morton is the Director of INSIGHT, the UTS Research Insttitue for Innovative Solutions for Well-being and Health. She is also an epidemiologist and Public Health Physician with a track record of successfully undertaking impactful, transdisciplinary and translational longitudinal research with capacity to improve wellbeing for individuals within and across population contexts. Her most significant research roles include establishing the University of Auckland cross-faculty Centre for Longitudinal Research – He Ara ki Mua (C4LongR) in 2010 and being the Foundation Director & Principal Investigator of the contemporary longitudinal child cohort study Growing Up in New Zealand at the University of Auckland (UoA) from 2005 until 2022.

2022 UTS 3MT Winner

Megan is currently a PhD Candidate and Research Associate at UTS, situated in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, School of Built Environment.

Megan has a diverse background consulting with public and private sectors building better urban space, IT infrastructure, and people resilience. She has worked with multiple levels of government, not-for-profit organisations, start-up companies, educational institutions, corporations, and small business for more decades than she cares to remember.

Her specialties always come back to the fundamentals of what makes an environment equitable, functional, and user-friendly so that everyone can thrive. Megan is currently interested in how policy, design and practice influence how people access and use public space, amenities, and services.

Join us and show your support in this exciting and entertaining event either at UTS or via Zoom.