Doctoral College Showcase
We are delighted to announce our winners from the Doctoral College showcase 2023 as:
Poster - Winner Dennis McCall
Poster - People’s Choice Dennis McCall
Poster - Runner up Thaer Al Ibaisi (online entrant)
Presentations - Winner Gemma Cooper
Presentation - People’s Choice Gemma Cooper
Presentation - Runner up Nwakaego Onyenokporo
3 Minute Thesis Institutional Final - Winner Dennis McCall
3 Minute Thesis Institutional Final - Runner up Chandrima Rodrigo
From left to right - Dennis Mc Call, Nwakaego Onyenokporo, Gemma Cooper, Chandrima Rodrigo
(Thaer Al Ibaisi joined remotely from Dubai)
The annual Doctoral College Showcase provides ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ’s PhD students with an opportunity to present their research to a non-specialist audience in an engaging way and demonstrate their passion for their subject.
This year hosted in the Vijay Patel Building, the Showcase was opened by Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Professor Heather McLaughlin, and welcomed 40 research degree students in delivering a 5 minute poster presentation, a 10 and/or a 3 minute presentation of their work.
The three minute presentations were part of the national Three Minute Thesis (3MT) contest, which challenges postgraduates from UK universities to explain their thesis in just 3 minutes and one slide to an audience of non-academics. This is no mean feat, given that the average 80,000 word thesis would take 9 hours to present!
Judging panels, including a range of ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ colleagues and external guests, reviewed all of the posters and presentations to decide on who gave the most engaging delivery of their work.
This year, the Judges’ Choice and People’s Choice prizes for Excellent Poster went to 3rd year PhD student, Dennis Mc Call Jr, for his research on Sustainable Aviation in Small Island Developing States: A Caribbean Case Study. Dennis, supervised by Professors Stephen Ison and Lucy Budd, also secured the top prize for his 3MT presentation “Flight 2050”. Dennis said “One of the things I truly enjoy is sharing my research with fellow students and even on my social media. As I am a 3rd year PhD student and in the thesis write-up phase, participating in the Showcase was necessary as it gave me the opportunity to convey my findings to a non-specialist audience and allowed me to practice for my viva and refine certain elements of the research”.
As the winner of ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ’s 3MT, Dennis will now go through to the national semi-finals of the 3MT, hosted by Vitae, competing against other PhD students in the UK. In talking about the 3MT event, Dennis said “Condensing my research from 80,000 words to 3 minutes is no easy task, however I love presenting on my research and found the experience quite exciting. I'm really excited and honoured to represent ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ at the national semi-finals."
In the Excellent Presentation Competition, the Judges’ Choice and People’s Choice prizes went to 2nd year PhD student, Gemma Cooper. Gemma, supervised by Dr Maitreyi Shivkumar, for her research on “Plants to Drugs: The search for novel antivirals”. Gemma commented "I'm very passionate about my antiviral research and it was great to see other people’s enthusiasm too. I enjoyed the opportunity to share my work with a wider audience. Being able to give a presentation to a large group was really rewarding and has boosted my confidence massively."
Dennis and Gemma both won £175 cash prizes from ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ’s Doctoral College, presented by Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Professor Deborah Cartmell. Dennis also won £100 for his successful 3MT presentation.
The Runner-up in the Excellent Poster Competition, who presented his poster in an online discussion with the judging panel, was 2nd year PhD student Thaer Al-Ibasi (supervised by Dr Muhammad Kazim) for his research on Network Intrusion Detection by hashed pattern matching using DNA bases encoding.
The Runner-up in the Excellent Presentation Competition was 4th year PhD student Nwakaego Onyenokporo (supervised by Professor Ahmad Taki) for her research on Exploring Rice Husk Ash as a Supplementary Cementitious Material and its Impact on Building Energy Performance.
The Runner-up in the 3MT Competition was 2nd year PhD student Chandrima Rodrigo (supervised by Dr Ismini Vasileiou) for her research on The human element is central in defeating cybercrime.
Please email any queries to researcherdevelopment@dmu.ac.uk.