Imagine condensing an 80,000-word thesis into a three-minute presentation. That’s exactly the challenge faced by PhD students in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.
This year’s The Australian National University (ANU) PhD candidates impressed the judges and audience at the recent ANU College of Systems and Society 3MT final, held on 30 June 2025.
The 3MT is a celebrated international competition that puts higher degree research students to the test. While a standard thesis could take around nine hours to communicate in full, the competition challenges participants to communicate their research using just one slide and three minutes.
This year’s cohort absolutely delivered; with crystal-clear communication, clever storytelling, and some impressively precise presentations that came in just seconds shy of the time limit.
Professor Valeska Ting, Associate Dean (Engagement, Research and Impact) and Interim Associate Dean (Higher Degree Research) at the College, praised the competition as a fantastic way for research students to practice showcasing their research to broader audiences.
“The Three Minute Thesis is so important for training our researchers. It’s about being able to convey your really complex research to anyone, including someone on the street, a potential collaborator in an elevator, or someone you’ve just met,” says Ting.
“If you can communicate the importance of what you’re doing, you might spark something in others – a curiosity to learn more or to ask great questions. It’s how we make an impact on the world. By getting our research out there, this is how we do the most good.”
Well done to all the fantastic students who took part in this year’s College finals.
Congratulations to Samantha Shippley and Lachlan McGinness, who took home first place ($400) and second place ($300) prizes respectively at the College final, as well as Shoshana Rapley who received the People’s Choice Award from the audience.
Meet our 2025 College finalists
Samantha Shippley from the Fenner School of Environment and Society was our College’s first place winner for her research tackling one of the great ecological challenges of our time, researching grasslands though ‘the secret life of poo’.
“Although they cover just a sliver of the Earth’s surface, natural temperate grasslands are incredibly important to our ecosystems. In fact, if we value life on this planet, we need them.”
Despite their importance, grasslands are one of the most endangered and altered landscapes on Earth, and Shippley is keen to change that.
“Herbivores shape and mould landscapes based on what they eat and how much,” says Shippley. “That’s where my research comes in, with a very unexpected ally: poo.
“Faeces, dung, scat, or as I personally call them, eco-gold. I have somehow found myself here having collected over 1,700 samples from kangaroos, wombats, deer, and cows.”
Combining science, creativity, and a willingness to get her hands dirty, Shippley is using a technique called DNA metabarcoding to find out what’s on the menu for both native and non-native herbivores and assess the impact on our grasses.
“Every sample I collect is like this tiny biological time capsule, holding fragments of the animal’s most recent meals. This knowledge is going straight back into creating better management strategies.”
Lachlan McGinness from the School of Computing says it’s time to teach again; winning second place for a presentation on leaning into artificial intelligence (AI) technology to assist with manual tasks that contribute to educator burnout and fatigue.
“I started my PhD in computer science because I wanted to use AI to reduce teacher workload and automate admin tasks like marking,” says McGinness. “I wanted my friends to be less overwhelmed and to love being in the classroom again.”
There are two main types of AI. Symbolic AI is powerful when strict rules are applied. Machine learning and neural networks can better navigate nuances but are computationally expensive and energy intensive.
“I think we can do better by combining both. In my research, I’ve shown that a neuro-symbolic AI can grade student responses to physics exams as accurately as the world’s best large language models, using only one per cent of the computational cost. And the system runs on a normal computer, without sending student data over the internet – solving a major privacy concern for schools.”
Sharmin Akter (Fenner School of Environment and Society) is digging deeper, literally, to study how microbial responses vary by soil type, and how this can have major implications for crops and agriculture.
“One of the most widely used insecticides in the world today was thought safe until problems showed up,” says Akter. “That made me look deeper underground at microbes, the soil’s silent workforce.”
Every soil type she studied told a different story, leading Akter to advocate for more nuanced, locally tailored pesticide products.
“We need to look beyond one-size-fits-all pesticide policies and think about soil-specific strategies to protect microbial health. If we ignore what’s happening underground, the consequences above won’t be far behind.”
Anjalie Edirisooriya (School of Engineering) is finding ways to selectively target the carbon dioxide that’s heating up our planet and use light to convert the gas into something more useful.
“Think of carbon dioxide as a heavy train at rest. If you push it, it will roll – but it will take the path of least resistance. Unless you flip a switch and guide it down the track that leads to the good stuff,” she says. “By changing the size and shape of the structures, I can control where my chemical reaction is headed into.”
“Finding solutions to climate change isn’t just about removing carbon. It is learning how to use it smarter.”
Buddhi Kothalawala (School of Computing) shared his research into using technology to uncover shared patterns in networks at scale.
“My PhD is about finding the largest shared pattern between two given networks,” he says. “I propose new mathematical techniques to solve this math problem on a large scale, in a fraction of a second.
This work has far-reaching potential across many industries.
“We can prevent financial fraud and scams,” he says. “Compare past serial activity to solve crimes, speed up the discovery of new medicines, analyse drug side effects, reveal cyber-attacks beforehand – just by connecting these dots.”
Shoshana Rapley (Fenner School of Environment and Society) is helping bring back the murderbirds, also known as the bush stone-curlew. This eerie, nocturnal bird with a haunting call went extinct in the capital region half a century ago. But a reintroduction project is helping bring them back
“I fell in love with these birds and eventually took it on for my PhD, the aim of which was to improve translocation outcomes by creating a recipe to move them, and to expand the project to new sites.”
Rapley captivated the audience and narrowly claimed the People’s Choice Award for her presentation.
“Once again, Australia’s southern woodlands can be haunted by the murderbird. Because we don’t have to accept extinction, and we can stop those lights from blinking out.”
Well done to all our fantastic PhD candidates who presented in the 3MT, and thanks to everyone who joined us on the day.
Looking ahead to the ANU grand final
The Three Minute Thesis competition not only highlights the brilliant work of PhD students but also underscores the importance of effective science communication.
Samantha Shippley and Lachlan McGinness will represent the College in the ANU 3MT Grand Final on Friday 11 July, competing against finalists from across the University. There’s a lot at stake – with the winner earning a place in the Asia-Pacific 3MT final and taking home a $4,000 prize. The runner up will receive $2,500 and the people’s choice winner will be awarded $1,000.
Good luck to all candidates and may the best three minutes win.