OSU graduate student wins 3MT regional competition People’s Choice Award

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Amanda Curtis, an Oklahoma State University animal science master’s degree student, won a People’s Choice Award at a Conference of Southern Graduate School’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Regional Competition March 8 in New Orleans. Curtis presented her thesis topic, “Alternative to antibiotics.”

Amanda Curtis, an Oklahoma State University animal science master’s student, pictured after winning the 2014 OSU Three Minute Thesis competition finals. Curtis won the People’s Choice Award recently at the Conference of Southern Graduate School’s 3MT regional competition in New Orleans.

“The idea is basically Holistic medicine but with science behind it,” Curtis said. “I used compounds found in plants or organic compounds like amino acids. I found out using these compounds, I was able to induce an immune response in animals. This provides a potential candidate for another test to someday replace or decrease the use of antibiotics.”

3MT is a research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland in 2008 that has since been adopted at universities around the world. The exercise challenges master’s and doctoral students to present a compelling talk on their thesis or dissertation topic. Students have just three minutes and one slide to convey their research to a lay audience.

“It’s difficult to try and not use technical language when creating a very short speech,” Curtis said. “Talking to people who don’t know what you’re talking about or know the acronyms that you use in your normal language is a challenge. You have to turn fancy terms into layman’s terms.”

As the first place winner in the 2014 OSU 3MT competition, Curtis qualified to represent the university at the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools regional 3MT where she competed against 25 other graduate students. This year’s regional was organized by Dr. Sheryl Tucker, OSU Graduate College Dean, and was held at the conference’s 2015 annual meeting.

“Overall, the experience was good because it allowed me to better understand my research,” Curtis said. “It helps me explain what I’m doing to family members or friends. Yet when people come up to me with questions after presentations, I have to answer them accurately and scientifically and be able to dive in as specific as necessary.”

The 2015 OSU Graduate College 3MT finals will be held April 16 at 3:30 pm in the Student Union Little Theater. For information visit http://gradcollege.okstate.edu/3mt.