Students from across our University have been sharing their enthusiasm and commitment to their research areas through our first Three Minute Thesis Competition.

A total of 18 students were selected to speak at the event with the judging panel including leading academics Professor Jonathan Baker, Professor Chris Cooper, Professor Pamela Cox and Professor Karen Hulme.

The amazing diversity of the research being undertaken at the University was celebrated through the competition with presentations ranging from the representation of women in war-themed Bangladeshi films to tackling Parkinson’s Disease and researching how we walk to perfecting self-drive cars .

The winner of the competition was Jon Chamberlain from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering who explained how marine life research can be transformed by mapping different species through mentions on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

He said: “It has been a great experience and nice to meet my colleagues at the University and hear about their research and share my work.”

The runner-up was Caroline Carey from the Institute for Social and Economic Research who is researching health and inequalities and how socio-economic experiences can influence health outcomes.

Three Minute Thesis Competition from University of Essex on Vimeo.

She said: “It has been really good fun to get to meet lots of other people from the University and learn about the research they are doing. It has also been a great way to practice my presentation skills.”

The students and staff who packed into LTB 2 voted Cheryl Eno-Ibanga from the School of Biological Sciences the Audience Choice winner for her inspiring talk on her research into the structure of the HPeV1 virus and the potential to prevent diseases caused by it.

She said: “It was nice to take part as now I know how to communicate my project more.”

Professor Cooper said: “We were incredibly impressed by the quality of the presentations and really enjoyed them.”

The researcher selected to take part were:

• Fahmida Akhter from the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
• Wafaa Alfares from the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
• Khattab Ali from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
• Olayinka Awofolu from the School of Health and Human Sciences
• Paul Baror from the School of Law
• Caroline Carney from the Institute for Social and Economic Research
• Jon Chamberlain from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
• Harish Cheruvara from the School of Biological Sciences
• Alex Donov from the Department of Economics
• Kim Duffy from the School of Biological Sciences
• Cheryl Eno-Ibanga from the School of Biological Sciences
• Luis Miguel Goncalves de Faria from the Centre of Computational Finance and Economic Agents
• Ekaterine Iakobishvili from the School of Law
• Nikita Jacob from the Department of Economics
• Janchai King from Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust
• Morteza Shirzad from the School of Law
• David Sykes from the School of Law
• Leila Tavallali from the School of Biological Sciences