2025 MAGS 3MT® Three Minute Thesis Competition

Nominate a Student Here (see rules below):

  • Download a Flyer about the 2025 MAGS 3MT® Three Minute Thesis Competition
  • By February 28, 2025: Use this Google Form link to nominate a student (or create a placeholder).
      –Note: Slides should be JPEG only and should be titled with student’s last name, first name and school: i.e. “DilksStephenUMKC.jpg” Slide dimensions should fit height and width ratio of wide-screen Powerpoint Display.
  • By March 14, 2025: Final placeholder names are due.
      –A link for 3MT participants to register at the Conference will be sent prior to the conference.

Questions? Please reach out to the Chair of the MAGS 3MT® Committee at [email protected].

The 3MT® Three Minute Thesis is an academic competition that challenges master’s and doctoral students to describe their research to a general audience within three minutes.
3MT celebrates the discoveries made by research students and encourages communication about the importance of their research to the broader community.

MAGS is sponsoring a 3MT® Three Minute Thesis Competition to be held April 4, 2025 at the 81st MAGS Annual Meeting at the Sheraton Indianapolis Hotel at Keystone Crossing. Participants compete on the final day of the MAGS annual meeting; awardees will be selected and announced at that time. Student participants must be nominated by member institutions according to the specified guidelines below. Only one student per institution may compete. A $50 participation fee will be collected at the time of nomination. Institutions will be responsible for student travel costs.

What is the 3MT® Three Minute Thesis?
To encourage students to effectively explain their research in three minutes in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience, the University of Queensland developed the 3MT® Three Minute Thesis competition. MAGS hosts the CGS-affiliate midwestern region competition where students summarize their research in three minutes using pre-determined guidelines. A panel of judges scores each presentation to determine the top two awardees. MAGS members in the audience select the People’s Choice Award. The first place winner has the opportunity to represent MAGS at the national CGS competition, with the nominating institution’s support.

Institutional Guidelines:

  • Only MAGS member institutions, in good standing, are eligible to compete.
  • The institution must hold its own 3MT® competition. Institutions may not nominate a student who did not compete in a local competition.
  • The institution must register their competition with the University of Queensland.

Nomination of a Student Competitor:

  • Only the official who supervises graduate education (e.g. graduate dean, director) may nominate a student for competition.
  • Students enrolled in either Master’s or Ph.D. programs may compete. A student’s program of study must contain an original research project. The degree program need not formally require a thesis or dissertation, however the presentation topic must cover the original research project.
  • One nominee per institution is allowed. Nominations include the nomination or placeholder form and PowerPoint slide (if choosing to use one).
  • Participants must be an enrolled student at some point during the academic year, including the previous summer, in which the MAGS competition is held.

Competition Rules:

  • One single static PowerPoint slide is permitted, but not required. Slide transitions, animations or ‘movement’ of any description of the slide content is not allowed.
  • No additional electronic media (e.g. sound and video files) are permitted.
  • No additional props (e.g. notecards, scripts, pointers, costumes, musical instruments, laboratory equipment) are permitted.
  • Presentations are limited to 3:00 minutes maximum and competitors exceeding 3:00 minutes are disqualified.
  • Presentations are to be spoken word (e.g. no poems, raps or songs).
  • Presentations are considered to have commenced when a presenter begins through movement or speech.
  • Participants will be broken into groups for judging purposes.
  • There will be one preliminary round of judging with the top 2 choices selected from each group to advance to the final round of judging.
  • The top 2 choices from each group will present again in the final round. At least one judge from each group will then review/rate those presentations to determine the top 2 awardees. MAGS members will vote on the People’s Choice award from this group.
  • The decision of the judging panel is final.

Nominate a Student Here:

  • Download a Flyer about the 2025 MAGS 3MT® Three Minute Thesis Competition
  • Use this Google Form link to nominate a student (or create a placeholder) by February 28, 2025. Note that any placeholder names are due by March 14, 2025.

Questions? Please reach out to the Chair of the MAGS 3MT® Committee at [email protected].

3MT is a registered trademark of the University of Queensland.

MAGS 2024 3MT Competition, April 5, 2024, Clayton St. Louis, MO

  • 1st Place – Brian Choi, Loyola University of Chicago: Discovering New Bacteria Species in Your Urinary Tract

  • 2nd Place and People’s Choices – Emma Elizabeth Sabu Kattuman, University of Toledo: Cysteinyl Leukotriene Receptors Promote Melanoma Progression and Metastasis

MAGS 2023 3MT Competition, March 31, 2023, Chicago, IL

Winners, left to right:

      • 1st Place – Harshita “Hershey” Kondeti, Loyola University Chicago: Straight out of a science fiction novel: The road to curing Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease
      • 2nd Place – Paulina Eberts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities: Decoding blood-brain barrier dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease
      • People’s Choice – Valeria Andrade, University of Cincinnati: Recovering function after stroke: Is movement creativity the solution?

MAGS 2022 3MT Competition, April 8, 2022, Milwaukee, WI

Left to right: 2nd Place – Desire Ortiz Torres, University of Illinois Chicago; 1st Place – Tabitha DiBacco, Western Michigan University; People’s Choice – Mehreen Iftikhar, Kansas State University

MAGS 2021 3MT Competition Awardees (Virtual, Spring 2021)

1st Place – Ali Rassi, University of Oklahoma

“From Bench-top to the Operating Rooms: 3D Printed Implants”

2nd Place – Vishakh Iyer, Indiana University

““Weeding” Out the Opioid Epidemic”

3rd Place – Sai Siva Kare, University of Illinois Chicago

“Gift of Vision”

MAGS 2020 3MT Competition Awardees (Virtual, Fall 2020)

1st Place – Megan LaFollette, Purdue University

2nd Place – Varadha Balaji Venkadakrishnan, Cleveland State University

“PKN1 is an alternative target in advanced prostate cancer”

3rd Place – Amber Urban, Ball State University

“Menstruation: How we tell the story”

MAGS 2019 3MT Competition, March 22, 2019, St. Louis

Left to right: 2nd Place – Monica Arul, University of Notre Dame; 1st Place – Chris Omni, Kansas State University; People’s Choice – Teng Keng Vang, Miami University; MAGS 3MT Committee Chair, Nicole Lounsbery, South Dakota State University