College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine

Tissue repair PhD student wins University 'Three Minute Thesis' competition

Phoebe Kirkwood of the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research has won the University of Edinburgh's 'Three Minute Thesis' competition, sending her on to the UK Final.

Image showing the group of 2018 3MT finalists
The 2018 3MT finalists

The 3MT Final was held in the Informatics Forum on Friday 22 June and hosted an audience of around one hundred people with a diverse judging panel of six.  

Cross College competition

Nine finalists from three Colleges competed to deliver the best research presentation in three minutes with one slide.

There were three representatives from the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, all of whom had made it through from the College finals earlier this year. Along with Phoebe, also competing were Owen James and Danielle Leighton.

Owen James from the Centre of Clinical Brain Sciences and the Euan MacDonald Centre was the runner-up with his talk titled 'Human Myelin in a Dish'.

About the competition

Image showing Phoebe Kirkwood, 3MT winner
Phoebe Kirkwood, the 2018 3MT Edinburgh winner

The 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition requires doctoral researchers to compete to deliver the best research presentation in just 3 minutes (and one slide). It is based on a concept developed by the University of Queensland which quickly spread across Australia and New Zealand, and has gone global.

The University of Edinburgh has run a 3MT competition every year since 2013.

I was honoured to win the 3MT University Final talking about my PhD project which aims to understand the mechanisms behind scarless tissue repair in the endometrium. All the finalists did an incredible job and the whole day was a huge success. I now have the honour of proceeding to the UK Final in September and perhaps even the Universitas 21 competition, so keep your fingers crossed!

Phoebe KirkwoodPhD student and 3MT winner

Phoebe is a final year PhD student in the group of Professor Philippa Saunders. We asked Philippa how she felt about Phoebe’s 3MT success:

Phoebe has been an outstanding PhD student and her enthusiasm for her studies was perfectly illustrated by her 3 minute thesis presentation! The lab and her supervisors are all feeling very proud at the moment. I am a great enthusiast for the 3MT format and have encouraged staff and students alike to try out this method of 'pitching' their research to friends and family alike.

Professor Philippa SaundersChair of Reproductive Steroids and Director of Postgraduate Research (CMVM)

The UK final takes place on Monday 17 September in Birmingham. We wish Phoebe the very best of luck.

Related links

Video: Why take part in 3MT?

Find out more information on the 3MT competition

MRC Centre for Inflammation Research