Thakshala Tissera, a doctoral student in the Department of English, has been named the winner of the 2024 Three Minute Thesis competition. Organized by the Graduate School, the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) challenges graduate students to describe their research in an engaging manner, using non-technical language, all in three minutes or less.  

Tissera’s presentation, “Elephant Tales: Stories for Coexistence,” was selected by the distinguished panel of judges as the winner in the live campus final, held March 1st in the Old Chapel.  

Rehab Heikal, Ph.D. student, Chemistry, and her presentation, “Identification of the Cellular Garbage Truck for our Memory Protein” and Seanne Clemente, Ph.D. student, Organismic & Evolutionary Biology, and his presentation “Pollinator Pharmacies in your Garden: Investigating bumble bee self-medication," were named 3MT co-runners up. Clemente also received the People’s Choice award, which is voted on by the audience. 

A total of 10 finalists representing seven graduate programs competed in the campus final. As UMass's 3MT winner, Tissera will go on to compete in the regional 3MT in April, along with 3MT winners from over 25 graduate schools in the northeastern United States and Canada. 

3MT Campus Final included the Images of Research competition, featuring images submitted by graduate students and postdocs. Images were posted to Instagram (@UMass_OPD), with winners named in multiple categories. The “Instagram Favorite” was by  Grace Casselberry  (Postdoc in Environmental Conservation). The "Graduate School Favorite" and "People’s Choice" winner was by Rozy Bathrick  (PhD student in Organismic & Evolutionary Biology).

This story was originally published by the Graduate School.