Meet the finalists and winners from the 2025 competition! 2025 Penn 3-Minute Thesis Competition

Penn 3MT is a University-sponsored speaking competition designed to showcase graduate student research in three-minute talks to a general audience. This is a terrific opportunity for graduate students engaged in substantive original research to develop communication skills and share their work with faculty, students, and staff from across the University.

Timeline

In addition to bragging rights, a prize of $1000 will be awarded to the first-place winner and $500 to both the second-place and audience choice winners. Winners will also have the opportunity to participate in regional and national 3 Minute Thesis competitions!

To enter, students must register below and submit a video of their three-minute talk to Penn 3MT (details below) by Saturday, March 2. From those first-round submissions, up to 10 finalists will be chosen to compete in the campus-wide, live competition on Friday, March 22.

Register for Round 1 Submission

Watch the Live Competition Here!

Meet the Finalists & Winners!

First Place, $1000, Jaydee Edwards

Jaydee is a 5th year PhD student in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science. She's an environmental geochemist and her research focuses on a sub-category of microplastics, known as tire- and road-wear particles. These particles are often found in road dust, so to collect her samples, you may find her out and about in Philly with a broom and dustpan or even a vacuum in hand. When she isn't looking at the road, she may be out for a run, hanging out with her cats and roommates, or more often, taking a nap. 3MT Title: “What Happens After Rubber Meets the Road?”

Second Place, $500, Peter Satterthwaite

Peter is a Ph.D. candidate in the Ancient History program Penn. He first fell in love with archaeology while excavating Roman ruins in Germany, and has since worked on digs in Italy, Greece, and Turkey. As a historian and an archaeologist, he is equally at home in the library, in the lab, and in the trenches. In his free time, Peter enjoys photography, especially restoring vintage film cameras. 3MT Title: “What’s in Your Wallet? Currencies & Crisis in Ancient Greece” 

Audience Choice, $500, Vivian Lin

Vivian is a fifth year PhD student in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she also completed her Bachelors at the University of Virginia (Go Hoos!). In her free time, Vivian likes to pick up hobbies, get overly invested in them for six months, and then never touch them for two years, after which the cycle repeats. These hobbies include crocheting, junk journaling, running, and boxing. 3MT Title: “A Plan B for Untrustworthy AI Drivers.”

Priyanka Chatterjee

Priyanka is conducting her PhD in Microbiology and loves to learn about how microbes talk to each other. She has held many leadership positions here at Penn, including serving as Chair of the Biomedical Graduate Students Association. She has also helped launch a new podcast called ArchaeaCast, which aims to share the knowledge about microbes that live in extreme environments. In her free time, you can see Priyanka practicing her new hobby, ice skating! 3MT Title: “Microbrial Roll Call”

Mehrnaz Zakershahrak

Mehrnaz is a passionate dentist and post-graduate researcher pursuing a Doctor of Science in Dentistry (DScD) at Penn Dental Medicine. She also serves as the Deputy Director of Academic Programming at Penn’s Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA) and is a Board Member of the International Student Advisory Board, advocating for student engagement and global collaboration. Outside the lab and classroom, she finds joy in baking, playing chess, swimming, and maintaining a balanced life through these personal passions. 3MT Title: “Using Baby Teeth to Treat Celiac Disease”

Tyler Blanch

Tyler is a 2nd year PhD student in the Bioengineering Department working within the Heo Lab. He earned two bachelor's degrees in Biochemistry and Applied Mathematics at the University of New Mexico before coming to Penn, where he now studies tendon cell biology and disease. In his free time, he likes to stay active and participate in intermural sports at Penn. 3MT Title: “How Your Tendons Degrade with Age”

Mark Bray

Mark is a third-year graduate student in the Biochemistry & Biophysics department at the University of Pennsylvania. His research is focused on discovering novel inhibitors of the Ebola virus protein, VP35, using AI-based tools. When he's not in the lab, Mark enjoys playing soccer, exploring Philadelphia, and running. He recently ran his first half-marathon: the Philadelphia Love Run. He is not sure whether he'll sign up for another one ever again. 3MT Title: “AI to Our Pandemic Rescue! Preparing for the Next Ebola Outbreak”

Brian Li

Bryan is a PhD Candidate in Computer and Information Science. His research studies the multilingual capabilities of large language models, investigating both what knowledge they encode, and how they can be used to understand our society. During his PhD, his research conferences and internships have taken him from coast-to-coast, to Canada, Mexico, Singapore, and Rwanda. Aside from computer science, his interests include live music, coffee, marine mammal biology, biking, and running -- shout outs to the Schuylkill River Trail! 3MT Title: “Can AI Get Its Facts Straight Across Languages?”