UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Ten graduate students from eight academic programs have been named finalists for the 2024-25 Penn State Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. The students, who advanced out of an initial group of 36, will now compete in a final in-person round at 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 29, livestreamed from the Nittany Lion Inn on the University Park campus.  

3MT is an academic research communication competition developed by the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia, that is now hosted at more than 900 universities in 85 countries worldwide. The Fox Graduate School is hosting Penn State’s 3MT competition in partnership with the Graduate and Professional Student Association and the Fox Graduate School Alumni Society. 3MT offers graduate students the opportunity to hone their academic and research presentation skills and their ability to effectively explain their research to a general audience. Students are allowed three minutes and the use of one presentation slide to convey their work. 

Students from 24 academic programs submitted videos as part of the virtual first round of the competition. A group of volunteer community judges evaluated the presentations scoring on areas such as the background and significance to the research question, how well the presentation clearly described the research design and results, and if the language used was appropriate for a non-specialist audience, among other factors.  

The first-place prize for the competition is $1,000, the second-place prize is $500, and a third prize, the People’s Choice, is also $500 and is sponsored by the Graduate and Professional Student Association. The People’s Choice Award will be selected by in-person and virtual attendees at the end of the final round.  

This spring’s final-round participants include:    

• Tanveer Ahmed, doctoral student in civil engineering, College of Engineering, “Adaptive traffic signal control measures for urban network problems” 

• Brad Foster, doctoral student in molecular, cellular, and integrative biosciences, Huck Institute of Life Sciences, “Investigating the Role of Mechanobiology in Driving Fatigue Loading Induced Tendon Degeneration” 

• Tricia Hart, doctoral student in nutritional sciences, College of Health and Human Development, “Eating Pecans as a Snack Reduced Heart Disease Risk Compared to Usual Diet in Adults at Increased Risk for Heart Disease” 

• Daisuke Hayashi, doctoral student in nutritional sciences, College of Health and Human Development, “A Mixed Methods Approach to Explore and Define Food Noise” 

• Marjan Karimizadkomarej, master’s student in landscape architecture, College of Arts and Architecture, “Seeing is Believing: Realistic Water Visualizations for Better Stormwater Solutions” 

• Patrick Sarpong, doctoral student in energy and mineral engineering, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, “The potential of bioleaching in the recovery of lithium from Lithium Iron Phosphate battery waste” 

• Amin Sepehri, doctoral student in architectural engineering, College of Engineering, “Buildings as Batteries via Smart Envelope” 

• Younes Shekarian, doctoral student in energy and mineral engineering, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, “Development of a chemical-free process using ozone for the recovery of cobalt (Co) and manganese (Mn) from acid mine drainage (AMD)” 

• Adam Smerigan, doctoral student in chemical engineering, College of Engineering, “The Untapped Treasure in Toxic Waste: Fueling Modern Technologies Sustainably” 

• Tasneem Tariq, doctoral student in architecture, College of Arts and Architecture, “How to Mitigate the Urban Heat Island Effect in Baltimore: Selecting Effective Blue-Green Infrastructures Combining Simulation Study and Community Feedback” 

Members of the Penn State and local community interested in watching the final round can do so via the event’s livestream or by registering to attend the free event in person. Registration to attend will be open in February and more information will be available on the Fox Graduate School website.