Skip to main navigationSkip to main content
The University of Southampton
Engineering

World leading research revealed in just three minutes

Published: 17 March 2015

How can you explain your PhD in just 180 seconds? Postgraduate researcher Berit Plumhoff managed it in style when she won the Engineering and the Environment heat of Southampton’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) contest and will go on to represent the Faculty in the University-wide final in May.

“I wanted to take part because I enjoy communicating my research,” she explains. “It’s important for the wider world to understand what we do at the University of Southampton, but it was a challenging experience against tough competition as everyone taking part was very good.”

Berit is researching how a mother’s diet influences the health of her children, in particular through the impact of poor choices such as fatty food, on the smallest of blood vessels, which are only a tenth of a human hair in diameter. She described how she examines the capillary network in mice using high resolution CT scanners.

The 3MT® final will pit talented PhD students from all eight Faculties against each other. Postgraduate researchers must keep strictly to the time limit and are allowed just one Powerpoint slide to help them tell the story of their research. The eventual winner will be awarded £1,000 to support his/her research, the runner up will receive £500 and the People’s Choice winner (voted by the audience) gets £500.

Privacy Settings