A chemical engineering doctoral student took first place as the University of Waterloo hosted its annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition this week.
Gregory Lui topped a field of 14 presenters at the Theatre of the Arts with a 180-second explanation of his research on using photocatalysts to convert pollutants in wastewater into electricity.
Gregory Lui, centre, celebrates his 3MT win with runner-up Tina Chan, left, and people's choice winner Percy Korsah.
The first Waterloo Engineering winner in the six-year history of the event at the University, he claimed $1,000 and a ticket to the provincial 3MT finals at York University in Toronto on April 19.
Lui, who got the wastewater for his research from local breweries and hopes to finish his PhD this year, described his preparation for the event as “actually quite boring.”
“It’s just a lot of rote memorization and practice,” he said.
Tina Chan, a master’s student in public health and health systems, took the $500 runner-up prize, while geography PhD candidate Percy Korsah won the people’s choice award.
Three minutes and one slide
Waterloo Engineering was also represented by finalists Danielle Ripsman (management sciences), David Abou Chacra (systems design engineering), Hossam Amer (electrical and computer engineering), Kevin Goorts (civil and environmental engineering), Lichen Zhang (civil and environmental engineering), Michelle Bullough (architecture), Nivas Ramachandiran (mechanical and mechatronics engineering) and Seyed Hossein Mirjahanmardi (electrical and computer engineering).
A world-wide event that began at the University of Queensland in Australia in 2008, 3MT challenges master’s and doctoral students to explain the breadth and significance of their research to non-experts in three minutes using one static slide.
Lui is supervised by chemical engineering professors Aiping Yu and Michael Fowler.