Medical Science student takes top spot in UCalgary Three Minute Thesis

If Chidera Nwaroh was nervous, it didn’t show.

In fact, I probably looked more nervous watching than the 10 finalists presenting at the 2018 UCalgary 3MT competition. The graduate student competitors all delivered masterful talks at Tuesdays’ standing-room-only event, held at the Hunter Hub Collision Space.

Nwaroh, a Cumming School of Medicine master's student in medical science, edged out her colleagues to clinch first place and move on to the regional finals at the University of Regina on April 27.

The Three-Minute Thesis, or 3MT, is a communication competition in which graduate students summarize their research in no more than three minutes, with a single slide. Originating at the University of Queensland in Australia, the 3MT takes place at universities around the world. This year was the sixth UCalgary 3MT. The 10 finalists emerged from a field of nearly 60 competitors through five heats, hours of practice, and workshops and feedback sessions offered by My GradSkills, the Faculty of Graduate Studies group that runs the event.

The Hunter Hub Collision Space was well-suited to the event, itself a collision of wide-ranging ideas. For an hour charged with anticipation, the audience took in topics jumping from driverless technology to heart disease, urban sprawl to stem cell science and more.

A better understanding of brain metabolism

Nwaroh’s winning talk was A Virtual Biopsy: Detecting Metabolite Changes in the Brain. “I hope that the results of my project will take us a step closer to implementing transcranial direct current stimulation as a clinical therapy,” says Nwaroh. “I truly believe tDCS has a lot of potential to dramatically change people’s lives and I hope my study helps to make that a reality. Additionally, I would like magnetic resonance spectroscopy to have its moment in the sun! It is a really cool technique with a lot of potential that unfortunately does not get the credit it deserves.”

Nwaroh credits her supervisor, Ashley Harris, with encouraging her to enter the 3MT, despite her initial reservations: “I didn’t feel like I was far enough along in my project to fully understand it, let alone convey its importance to an audience.”

Participating in the competition helped Nwaroh learn how to make her highly technical work accessible to others. “This experience taught me how to convey just how important and relevant my project is to a range of people,” says Nwaroh. ”Clear communication is extremely important when disseminating research to the public.”

#GRADimpact People’s Choice

Adding to the buzz, My GradSkills invited eight graduate students and alumni to the event to share the impact of their graduate research in our communities. A People’s Choice award was given for one of the eight GRADimpact posters on display at the event. Suzanna Crawford, a nursing master's student, won for her role in establishing Enable, a not-for-profit organization that matches caregivers to families with acute need for support.

2018 UCalgary 3MT Winners

First Place
Chidera Nwaroh, Medical Science. 
Supervisor: Ashely Harris
Talk title: A Virtual Biopsy: Detecting Metabolite Changes in the Brain 

Second Place
Pouyan Keshavarzian, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Supervisor: Michal Okoniewski 
Talk title: Future Destinations: Self-Driving Tech for Canadian Climates

Third Place 
Cindy Kalenga, Medical Sciences
Supervisor: Sofia Ahmed
Talk title: The Greatest Health Threat Women Face Today 

People’s Choice 
Afrooz Eshraghian, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering 
Supervisor: U.T. Sundararaj 
Talk title: Polymer Composites for Electrical Shielding