The winner of the Three Minute Thesis Competition Katie Groves

Students from across the University were challenged to present their PhD thesis in just three minutes through our Three Minute Thesis Competition.

A total of 14 students were selected to speak at the event with the judging panel including leading academics Professor Chris Cooper, Professor Pamela Cox, Dr Nancy Kula and Dr Peter Luther.

The amazing diversity of the research being undertaken at the University was celebrated through the competition with presentations ranging from body image and how we perceive ourselves to detecting intrusion in self-driving cars and how competition affects our decisions.

The winner of the competition was Katie Groves from the Department of Psychology who has been researching body image disturbances and what happens in the brain when you see a body.

She said: “The competition was really interesting and we got to have an insight into different research areas that I wouldn’t necessarily know about. It was eye opening and it gave me a different perspective on things.”

“I feel over the moon for winning this competition. It has been such an amazing experience and to win it is incredible,” added Katie.

The runner-up was Hasan Tahir from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering who researches the internet of things. His area is related to cryptography and how applications are designed for security.

He said: “It was a tough challenge but very rewarding at the same time.”

Alexander Wenz from the Institute for Social and Economic Research was voted the Audience Choice winner for his inspiring talk on data quality of mobile surveys. He is looking at how completing a survey on a smartphone or a tablet may affect responses.

Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition from University of Essex on Vimeo.

The researchers selected to take part were:

•          Alexander Wenz from the Institute for Social and Economic Research
•          Ana Gheorghiu from the Department of Psychology
•          Andrew Starkey from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
•          Jeremy Solnick from the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies
•          Dian Rahajeng from Essex Business School
•          Eslam Osman from the School of Biological Sciences
•          Hasan Tahir from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
•          Joe Greenwood from the Department of Government
•          Katie Groves from the Department of Psychology
•          Katja Waschneck from the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies
•          Khattab M Ali from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
•          Xinwei Zhu from the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies
•         Gillian Walker from the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies
•          Marco Konings from the School of Biological Sciences

Watch the winner's presentations