Jigar P. Sethiya Among Winners at 3-Minute Thesis Competition

On October 11th, 2024, the Office of the Associate Dean of Graduate Education within the College of Pharmacy held its annual 3-Minute Thesis competition for its graduate student population.

Jigar Sethiya's presentation “A fight against Dengue and Zika” was awarded BOTH Runner Up and People's Choice. Jigar is an active member of the Medicinal Chemistry PhD program and works closely with Prof. Carston "Rick" Wagner in his lab. Each award comes with a $500 travel grant, for a total winnings of $1000 towards research-related travel. Jigar plans to use his funds towards his trip to ACS San Diego in March 2025.

The overall winner of the competition was Muskan Baldoa, a Pharmaceutics PhD student. She will have the opportunity to present her talk,"Smart nanovehicles to silence brain inflammation," at the University-wide competition in November.

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) is intended to "cultivate students’ academic, presentation, and research communication skills." During the 3MT competition each student has three minute to explain their research in a manner accessible for a lay audience.   The first 3MT competition was held at University of Queensland in 2008 with 160 students competing. Today, 900 universities across more than 85 countries worldwide hold 3MT competitions annually.

At the University of Minnesota, each college holds a separate competition early in the Fall Semester. The winner of each unit will advance to the University-wide 3MT competition in November. The winner of the University-wide 3MT competition will then advance to a regional 3MT competition in the Spring.

Read more about the Wagner Lab here.