Meet the ANU College of Systems and Society 3MT 2026 finalists

After their joint first-place win at the ANU College of Systems and Society 3MT finals, Okorite Itumo and Liye Fu are preparing for the next stage of the competition, which challenges participants to present their research – hours, days, months, even years – in under 3 minutes and a single PowerPoint slide. On Friday 10 July, they will join Higher Degree Research (HDR) students from across the university to share their research in short, dynamic and accessible presentations, with a chance to be crowned the ANU winner.

Get to know our finalists ahead of the event.

Getting the buzz on native bees

Okorite’s pathway to studying insect-plant interactions began during her Masters degree at Rivers State University in Nigeria, where she studied Applied and Environmental Entomology. This blossomed her strong interest in the relationship between pollinators and their floral resources.

I became increasingly interested in DNA metabarcoding as a tool for understanding the plants bees use and how that changes over time. I was particularly drawn to its ability to reveal pollen and plant–pollinator interactions that can be difficult to observe directly in the field.

When she saw the advertised PhD project involving DNA metabarcoding with the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society, she had to apply.

I chose to study at ANU because of its strong reputation in environmental science, ecology and biodiversity research. It also offers a supportive research environment, with access to expertise, facilities and collaborations relevant to my work.

Okorite shares that participating in the 3MT competition gives her a chance to challenge herself and build her confidence in sharing her research with people outside of her field. Her research involves DNA metabarcoding, pollen and native bees – which she reflects can sound quite technical.  

Most importantly, through the 3MT competition and her research more broadly, Okorite wants to raise awareness about native bees, the plants they rely on and how urbanisation may be changing the floral resources available to them.

By understanding more about this relationship, we can better protect native bee habitats and guide urban planning and conservation efforts to build healthier, more resilient urban ecosystems.
 

Building for the future, one tiny brick at a time

Liye’s PhD journey began with a career change. He completed his undergraduate and Master degrees in China in mechanical engineering, where he observed how fluids with different temperatures move from one place to another over time. He shares that after a while, he decided to change directions and applied for a PhD opportunity with the ANU School of Engineering.

ANU stood out to me because of its strong reputation, researcher expertise and their academic community. My research interests have shifted from the macroscale to the microscale – instead of observing the flow of fluids, I now observe the motion of atoms and molecules.

Liye reflects that he’s always admired ideas and objects that are simple but elegant - which is why he was drawn to studying 2D materials. 2D materials, which are made of a single layer of atoms, are a bit like LEGO bricks, but much, much smaller. Their basic structures can be very simple, but they can be connected and stacked in many different ways, which allows him to build materials with a wide range of properties.

Some structures may be useful for electronic devices, some for clean energy storage, and some for quantum technologies. This is important to me because it shows how something very small and seemingly simple can make big changes. I find it exciting that, by understanding and designing these tiny structures, we may be able to contribute to future technologies in energy, electronics, and beyond.

Liye values opportunities like the 3MT competition because it gives him the chance to bridge the gap between scientific research and the broader public. He believes that a lot of exciting research is written and presented to specialist audiences, which means people outside of those fields miss out. For him, science communication is about both explaining research clearly and sharing the curiosity, excitement and impact behind it.