3-minute thesis winner – by Chayan Chatterjee

“An 80,000 word PhD thesis would take 9 hours to present. Their time limit…3 minutes.”

The tagline above, for University of Queensland’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition perfectly summarises both the essence and the formidable challenge posed by the contest to participating PhD students!

Three Minute Thesis, first started in 2008, has now become a tradition, not only in UWA, but in universities all over the world. The idea is to cultivate students’ research communication and presentation skills and to uphold their capacity to effectively explain their research to a non-specialist audience in three minutes. Participants are only allowed to use one supporting slide (with no transitions or props) to support their talk.

This year, due to COVID restrictions, UWA hosted a virtual 3MT in the semi-final round, in which students from numerous departments submitted video recordings of their talks for selection to the finals.

I had started my PhD in Physics in February this year, and having a keen interest in science communication ever since high school, I was extremely eager to participate in this competition. Prior to the semi-finals, the Graduate Research School, led by Krystyna Haq and actor Lily Newbury-Freeman organized several workshops to train participants in the art of 3MT and public speaking, in general. It was through these workshops that I learnt the significance of voice modulations and correct body language in delivering an engaging speech with effect and conviction.

I came to realize that the idea behind 3MT, first and foremost, is to tell a compelling story. Instead of technical detail and nuance, the audience must be told, why, of all things, they should care about our research, which in my case, was locating signals from ringing space time produced by colliding black holes!

I was told that the secret to a good 3MT presentation was clever analogies. Therefore, while preparing my script, I thought of the best metaphors that could explain the complex ideas in my research. I drew parallels with the everyday world, relating astrophysical concepts to familiar things like “ripples in a pond”, “ruler”, “sounds of the universe”, which proved to be really effective and was admired by the judges.

I was ecstatic to find my name featured among the eleven finalists the day before the competition, albeit a bit nervous at the same time at the prospect of performing in front of a live audience in the final. The final was held on 10th September at the Social Sciences Lecture Theatre with eleven finalists and an audience of around one hundred, with many more watching online through live stream.

My talk was at the very end, and while I was sitting in the hall, nervously waiting for my turn, I was mesmerized by the amazing stories everyone had to tell. It was certainly a grand confluence of many diverse fields: from artificial intelligence to cancer research, from psychology to environmental science. It was truly inspiring to listen to the state-of-the-art research at UWA from the amazing people undertaking them.

In the end, I felt extremely lucky to be adjudged both the winner of this year’s 3MT and the winner of the People’s Choice award. It was a truly surreal moment for me. Along with the award came the honour of representing UWA at the Asia-Pacific 3MT and the Matariki Network of Universities 3MT (with first and second runner up, Courtney Weber and Olivia Johnston respectively) which I am extremely proud of and will cherish forever.

I encourage all PhD students to participate in 3MT during their candidature. It is a unique learning experience, unlike any other!