Complex issues, simply explained.

That’s the idea behind the Three Minute Thesis Competition taking place this Wednesday, April 27, at Memorial’s St. John’s campus.

The Eastern Regional Competition will see eight graduate students from universities across Eastern Canada and Quebec present to a panel of judges. Winners from the three regional competitions across the country advance to the national finals in May. The competition in Canada is hosted by the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies (CAGS).

Three Minute Thesis (3MT) is a research communications competition developed in 2008 by the University of Queensland in Australia. Master’s and doctoral students have three minutes to present a compelling oration on their thesis and its broader significance. 3MT is not an exercise in trivializing or “dumbing-down” research, but challenges students to consolidate their ideas and research discoveries so they can be presented concisely to a non-specialist audience.

The 2015 Eastern Regional winner, Memorial’s own Victoria Linehan, a PhD student in the Faculty of Medicine, will host this year’s Eastern Regional Competition.

The event will be held in the lecture hall in the School of Human Kinetics and Recreation, room PE-2001, at 3:30 p.m.