PhD students wins both Judges' and People's Choice award

Speaking on a range of topics, from film to languages to crisis migration, each competitor delivered informative and interesting presentations, summarising their research into their allocated three minutes.

The postgraduate researchers employed an array of tactics to convey their research in a succinct and engaging way.

For the first time in this years’ Three Minute Thesis faculty finals, both the Judging Panel’s first place award and the People’s Choice award was given to Sahar Alzahrani.

The final year PhD student, from Modern Languages, was the last to present on Wednesday and delivered a talk on ‘Enhancing learner autonomy in language learning through a blended course’. Sahar talked animatedly about her research and how her methods on enhancing learner autonomy help to breathe life into the classroom.

Sahar said: "I am happy and proud to represent the Faculty of Humanities in this competition. I have taken part in a similar competition before, not at this University, so it was nice to try it again. It is definitely challenging but it really encourages you to look at the big picture of your research, and summarise that into just 3 minutes, with only one slide."

Jenny Cuffe was awarded second place by the judges, with her presentation: ‘Crisis migration: A study of three families situated in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the UK’.

The four competitors to take part were:

• Abdulwahab Tahhan
• Jenny Cuffe
• Adam Vaughan
• Sahar Alzahrani

The next two 3MT faculty finals take place this Wednesday:

Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering - 3pm, in 53/4025

Faculty of Health Sciences - 4pm, in 67/1003

The 3MT Grand Final takes place on 12 May and makes up part of the Festival of Doctoral Research.

Follow the Doctoral College on Twitter, @UoSDocCollege, for live tweets during the faculty finals and all the latest Doctoral College updates.