Cheer on the 3MT Undergraduate Student Competitors!

Over forty undergraduate students in the Faculty of Science are participating in the first (virtual) Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition, on August 11th, & 12th, 2020. A new initiative, part of the Faculty of Science, Student Undergraduate Summer Research Experience Program.

Three Minute Thesis challenges students to communicate their ideas and research discoveries concisely to a non-specialist audience, in three minutes or less. There will be two competitions that will air live on the Faculty of Science YouTube channel:

Tune in, and cheer on our undergraduate students. Come and discover world-changing research happening at the UM Faculty of Science!

Listing of undergraduate student 3MT competitors and topics:


Life Sciences 3MT Competition
Tuesday, August 11, 2020, at 1:00 pm


“Zika Virus and Electrochemical Biosensors”
Aishat Bello
Supervisor: Dr. Sabine Kuss, Department of Chemistry

“Friend or Foe: Humpback and Killer whale communication”
Amy Irvine
Supervisor: Dr. Gail Davoren, Department of Biological Sciences

“Electrochemical sensing of Tropical Diseases”
Benjamin Ulmer
Supervisor: Dr. Sabine Kuss, Department of Chemistry

“Uncovering the Mechanisms of Lung Remodeling in Asthma”
Courtney Marshall
Supervisor: Dr. Neeloffer Mookherjee, Department of Biological Sciences

“Diagnostics on the go: Advanced molecular methods for pathogen detection”
Flyn Gallardo
Supervisor: Silvia Cardona, Department of Microbiology

“Electrochemical Approaches to Study Drug Resistance in Ovarian Cancer”
Huy Luu
Supervisor: Dr. Sabine Kuss, Department of Chemistry

“Exploring variation in fruiting success of an endangered orchid species”
Jacalyn Grey
Supervisor: Dr. Anne Worley, Department of Biological Sciences

“Moving and missing genes”
Jason Russell Agasid
Supervisor: Dr. Georg Hausner, Department of Microbiology

“Can we use current to treat orthostatic hypotension after spinal cord injury?”
Juanita Garcia
Supervisor: Dr. Kristine Cowley, Department of Physiology

“It’s a Trap!: How boldness relates to fitness in a docile ground squirrel species”
Justin Benjamin
Supervisor: Dr. Jane Waterman, Department of Biological Sciences

“Why Some Bacteria Kill and Others Don’t: Salmonella and T6SS”
Karsen Winters
Supervisor: Dr. Gerd Prehna, Department of Microbiology

“Characterization of Type Six Secretion System Chaperone Proteins”
Kartik Sachar
Supervisor: Dr. Gerd Prehna, Department of Microbiology

“Brain Imaging-Based Biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease”
Kyra Cebula
Supervisor: Dr. Ji Hyun Ko, Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Science

“Computing A Cure”
Matthew Kirby
Supervisor: Dr. Jörg Stetefeld, Department of Chemistry

“Are Transporters of Polyamides mitochondrial drug efflux pumps in Saccharomyces cerevisiae?”
Michael Adeyemi
Supervisor: Dr. Deb Court, Department of Microbiology

“Reviewing Drug Therapies Against SARS-CoV-2”
Nicole Taylor
Supervisor: Dr. Brian Mark, Department of Microbiology

“Effective biofuel production via Consolidated bioprocessing”
Paul Sogeke
Supervisor: Dr. Richard Sparling, Department of Microbiology

“Breakthroughs in the Race to Develop a SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine”
Raquel Russell
Supervisor: Dr. Brian Mark, Department of Microbiology

TBD
Raveen Sidhu
Supervisor: Dr. Kevin Fraser, Department of Biological Sciences

“Hepatozoon parasites in African ground squirrels: are sex-biases present and does it matter?”
Stephanie Kehler
Supervisor: Dr. Jane Waterman, Department of Biological Sciences

“Quantifying How Pathogenic Fungi Survive and Thrive”
Yana Syvolos
Supervisor: Dr. Aleeza Gerstein, Departments of Microbiology and Statistics


Physical, Computational and Data Sciences 3MT Competition
Wednesday, August 12, 2020 at 1:00 PM


“Effectiveness of boron as a probe of nuclear waste glass alteration in aqueous environments”
Aiden Farrant
Supervisor: Dr. Scott Kroeker, Department of Chemistry

“The Prevalence of Gaseous Outflows in Distant Galaxies”
Alan Nguyen
Supervisor: Chris O’Dea, Department of Physics and Astronomy

“Green Chemistry: From an Academic Research Perspective”
Amelia Kacperkiewicz
Supervisor: Dr. David Herbert, Department of Chemistry

“Compositional Control over Properties in Bioactive Glasses”
Angela Lu
Supervisor: Dr. Scott Kroeker, Department of Chemistry

“Designing an Iron catalyst for carbon dioxide reduction”
Baldeep Sidhu
Supervisor: Dr. David Herbert, Department of Chemistry

“The most powerful accelerators in the universe; Can W50 guide us to the Galactic PeVatron?”
Brydyn Mac Intyre
Supervisor: Dr. Samar Safi-Harb, Department of Physics and Astronomy

“Predicting Glass Hydrolysis from First Principles: Applications from Bioactive to Nuclear-Waste Glasses”
Clara Zwanziger
Supervisor: Dr. Scott Kroeker, Department of Chemistry

“Data Analysis of Bitcoin Transactions – A step towards global currency”
Dean Pistorius
Supervisor: Dr. Ruppa Thulasiram, Department of Computer Science

“Learn Everything, Know Nothing: The Medical Applications of Privacy-Preserving AI”
Delica Leboe-McGowan
Supervisor:  Dr. Noman Mohammed, Department of Computer Science

“Investigating the molecular fingerprints of molecules using microwave spectroscopy”
Gabrielle Daudet
Supervisor: Dr. Jennifer van Wijngaarden, Department of Chemistry

“Design and Development of a Portable Breast Microwave Imaging Device”
Gabrielle Fontaine
Supervisor: Dr. Stephen Pistorius, Department of Physics and Astronomy

“Determining the Structure of a Platinum Compound Using X-Ray Crystallography”
Guneet Uppal
Supervisor: Dr. David Herbert, Department of Chemistry

“Exploring the Radio Sky with VLASS Data”
Isabel Sander
Supervisor: Dr. Chris O’Dea, Department Physics and Astronomy

“Coupling of circuits”
Jaehyeong Yang
Supervisor: Dr. Can Ming Hu, Department Physics and Astronomy

“A Universal Question – of an Astronomical Scope”
John Jiwa
Supervisor: Dr. Chris O’Dea, Department of Physics and Astronomy

“Using AI to Suppress the Skin Response in Breast Microwave Imaging”
Jordan Krenkevich
Supervisor: Dr. Stephen Pistorius, Department of Physics and Astronomy

“What electrochemistry can offer?”
Karishma Bulleeraz
Supervisor: Dr. Sabine Kuss, Department of Chemistry

“The unconventional utilization of NMR spectroscopy to investigate paramagnetic metal organic frameworks”
Katrina Bergmann
Supervisor: Dr. Scott Kroeker, Department of Chemistry

“Design of Difluoroboron complexes for emissive materials”
Robert Ortiz
Supervisor: Dr. David Herbert, Department of Chemistry

“Assessing the effects of asymptomaticity and testing on COVID-19 dynamics”
Tasnim Rahman
Supervisor: Dr. Stephanie Portet, Department of Mathematics

“8.7 seconds – trivial to us, profound for neutrons”
Trang Thi Thu Bui
Supervisor: Dr. Wouter Deconinck, Department of Physics and Astronomy

“How to handle missing data”
Wanmeng Wan
Supervisor: Max Turgeon, Departments of Statistics and Computer Science

“Sampling methods for networks”
Xiaoqi Xie
Supervisor: Dr. Brad Johnson, Department of Statistics


Research at the University of Manitoba is partially supported by funding from the Government of Canada Research Support Fund.