易胜博官网

Graduate students spend years toiling over their research; their dissertations can run hundreds of pages. But over the past few weeks, dozens of 易胜博官网 graduate students took on what might have been the biggest challenge of their academic careers to date: They described their research in lay terms in

These brave students were participants in 易胜博官网鈥檚 second annual competition, a worldwide event that challenges them to engage an audience and convey the impact of their work 鈥� fast, and with just one static slide. 鈥淣o bells and whistles,鈥� said interim dean of the Cari Moorhead in her introduction of the final round of competition last week (April 26, 2017). 鈥淭hey can鈥檛 sing, they can鈥檛 dance, they can鈥檛 rap. Some of them were tempted.鈥�

Resisting that temptation through two rounds of competition, mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Drummond Biles took the top honor for his cogent explanation of thermal efficiency in automobiles. Modern cars, he said, lose up to 30 percent of the energy from gasoline to the colder metal surrounding the engine. Connecting the concept to his audience鈥檚 lives, he translated that energy loss to 68 million gallons of gasoline just from commuting, or 鈥�250 times the volume of this theatre听here.鈥� His research aims to understand how that heat gets lost, leading to greater fuel efficiency in vehicles.

investigation into sand ripples and coastal change earned her second place. A Ph.D. student in ocean engineering, Wengrove showed how ripples that began at just centimeters were responsible for moving 600 wheelbarrows of sand in one day. 鈥淭his matters because we care about our coasts, we care about the people who live near our coasts,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f we can better understand the physics of how ripples change then we can better estimate how our coast will change with storms into the future.鈥�

work on how small mammals pollinate forests won third place 鈥� and identified five new species of New England truffles. Our forests face pressure from climate change, invasive insect species and timber harvests, Stephens said, so he鈥檚 exploring 听ways that small mammals, 鈥渢he foodies of the forest,鈥� can make our forests more resilient.

鈥淭his is more about communication than it is about research.鈥� 鈥� Cari Moorhead, interim dean of the graduate school

The Ph.D. student in natural resources explained how many tree species depend on a diversity of mycorrhizal fungi; truffles are the underground fruit of these fungi. 鈥淔or the same reason people spend $3,000 for one pound of truffles, small mammals find these truffles and eat them as a major part of their food source,鈥� he said, and disperse their spores 鈥� up to one billion of them in a single gram of poop. When an audience member asked him about his truffle-collecting methods, Stephens quipped that pigs and dogs are traditional truffle-hunters, 鈥渂ut we can鈥檛 afford them so we use undergraduates.鈥�

The people鈥檚 choice award went to Reverend Holland Prior, pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in nonfiction writing, for her work on the rise and fall of women in the American clergy. Jovana Milosavljevic Ardeljan, a Ph.D. student in education, was runner-up for her research on how graduate students can develop communication skills.

Developing those communications skills is a goal of the 3 Minute Thesis competition, Moorhead said.听 鈥淥ur students are learning to think about their research in ways they may not have previously done,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his is more about communication than it is about research.鈥�

Watch Drummond Biles' 3 Minute Thesis .

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