St. Paul Campus Science in Seconds
Could you explain a 50,000 word thesis in three minutes? They are going to try.
"The St. Paul Science in Seconds event is co-hosted by the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS), the College of Biological Sciences (CBS) and the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). The event will be hosted virtually this year.
Based on the Three Minute Thesis competition or 3MT, an annual competition held in over 200 universities worldwide, Science in Seconds provides graduate students in CFANS an opportunity to present their research in 180 seconds. Their presentations must be delivered in an engaging way that can be understood by an audience with no background in the research area. This exercise develops presentation, research and academic communication skills and supports the development of research students' capacity to explain their work effectively. Students who succeed at this event will go on to compete with others at the University and beyond.
View the digital program (PDF)
Schedule
3:00 Welcome & Introduction of Judges
3:15 Introduction of Participants & Presentations
4:15 Voting for People’s Choice Award
4:45 Winners Announced
Participants will be announced soon.
Criteria
Presenters will have three minutes and one slide to explain their research. Presentations will be scored based on three criteria: comprehension, engagement and communication.
Judges
- Dr. Thomas Molitor, Department Chair, Professor, Department of Veterinary Population Medicine
- Dr. Beth Thompson, Executive Director, Minnesota Board of Animal Health
- Dr. Bernice Folz, Professor Emerita of Software Engineering, University of St. Thomas
- Margaret Wagner, Minnesota Department of Agriculture (2010 alum - M.S. Agronomy)
- Dr. George Annor, Assistant Professor, Food Science and Nutrition
- Dr. Hikaru Hanawa Peterson, Professor, Applied Economics
Awards
- First place — $500
- Viewer's choice — $250
Participants
The following participants are confirmed; additional participants to be announced.
Haseeb Ali, Applied Economics PhD, CFANS
Michelle Boone, Entomology PhD, CFANS
Grace Dewi, Animal Sciences PhD, CFANS
Marissa Milstein, Veterinary Medicine PhD, CVM
Marissa Milstein is in her fourth year of her PhD program. As a veterinarian with a background in anthropology, Marissa is particularly interested in understanding the cultural drivers of emerging infectious disease in wildlife and human populations. She works with an indigenous group called the Waiwai to study zoonotic disease transmission from hunter harvested meat and vector-borne disease transmission, as well as how domestic dogs can serve as sentinels for infectious diseases in the human population.
Taz Mueller, Ecology, Evolution and Behavior PhD, CBS
Taz is a 4th year PhD candidate in the Moeller Lab, and their research explores the forces that shape fungal microbial communities in plant leaves. Taz goes out to California for field research several times a year to sample the leaf microbiomes of Clarkia xantiana, a winter annual wildflower.
Emily Pope, Comparative and Molecular Biosciences DVM-PhD, CVM
Emily is in the third year of her PhD. Emily’s research topic is osteosarcoma. Osteosarcoma is the most common primary bone tumor in humans and dogs. When a patient presents with detectable metastases, long-term survival drops precipitously to less than 20%. We hypothesize that osteosarcoma metastases have extracellular matrix (ECM) components that prevent chemotherapy and immune cells from penetrating into the tumor. Her research focuses on characterizing the role of hyaluronan in osteosarcoma chemoresistance, and using transposon mutagenesis to identify novel driver genes. A fun fact about Emily is that she rode horses professionally before entering vet school.
Siddhant Pusdekar, Ecology, Evolution and Behavior PhD, CBS
Siddhant Pusdekar is a PhD candidate in the Ecology, Evolution and Behavior Program at the UofM, where he studies hunting behavior in aerial insects. As a science communicator and science writer, is interested in telling stories of science as it interacts with the lives of people. Siddhant's Website
Jack Rabe, Conservation Sciences MS, CFANS
Jessica Rootes, Natural Resources Science and Management PhD, CFANS
Hannah Stoll, Applied Plant Science PhD, CFANS
Hannah is a 2nd year PhD student in Plant Breeding and Genetics at the University of Minnesota, studying Intermediate Wheatgrass (Kernza) breeding progress for key domestication traits. Hannah is particularly passionate about education and outreach, and always appreciates the opportunity to communicate the importance of her and her colleagues' research!
Vinni Thekkudan Novi, Bioproducts and Biosystems Science Engineering and Management PhD, CFANS
Brigitta Yaputri, Food Science MN, CFANS
