3MT success for Clear Vision PhD student Nicholas Bariesheff!

Recently, I had the privilege of representing the ANU College of Health and Medicine at the ANU 3 Minute Thesis Finals which was held at the prestigious Llewelyn Hall School of Music.

Imagine trying to present your entire PhD thesis in just 3 minutes! Well at the ANU 3MT finals, that is exactly what I had to do, using only a single static PowerPoint slide to support my presentation!

The slide I chose for my talk was a picture of me and my beautiful mum, with the bottom left of the image missing. Using this image as a personal reflection on what it is like to live with a part of your vision missing, I engaged the audience, presenting my research on how we could use the special molecular messages of exercise to stop that blind stop from being in the centre of your vision, which sadly is the reality for 1 in 7 Australians who suffer with Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

I was honoured and humbled to have been awarded the runner up prize for my 3MT talk. Congratulations to all the other 3MT finalists who each had incredible talks and importantly to Saishyam Ramesh from the Research School of Biology for being awarded both people’s choice and first place prize. I have no doubt that you will do an exceptional job representing the ANU at the Asia Pacific Finals in the coming weeks. Having had this wonderful opportunity to present at the ANU 3MT finals has been such a rewarding experience.

As a huge advocate for science communication, I was really able to appreciate and value being able to communicate complex scientific topics to a non-specialised audience in an engaging and effective way. I strongly encourage all PhD students to take part in the 3 Minute Thesis, as it is such a rewarding experience and you never know the connections you will make from it.

You can catch presentations by Nick and other ANU three minute thesis finalists on YouTube here.