Category: 3MT – Three Minute Thesis Competition
Winners of the 2023 Three Minute Thesis and BGRS Poster Competitions
Top row left to right: Conor J. Kelly, Jo Brydon-Dickenson, Allison McKibban. Bottom row left to right: Graham Driver, Laura Phillips-Farmer, Clau Di Gianfrancesco
Birkbeck’s annual Three Minute Thesis and Poster competitions were held on 25 May and proved to be an entertaining and invigorating evening for competitors and the audience alike.
For the Three Minute Thesis competition, participants from a range of different disciplines were challenged to present their scholarly research to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes. Showcasing their ability to talk with clarity and passion about their research, as well as their presentation skills, the quality of entries from doctoral students was exceptionally high. For the Poster competition, doctoral students submitted a poster design that explained their complex research to a mixed audience of non-subject specialists.
The winner and recipient of a £500 prize for the Three Minute Thesis was Conor J. Kelly, for his talk entitled ‘Brexit and Northern Ireland’s Political Parties’.
The winner of the Poster competition and recipient of £150 was Graham Driver for ‘Exploring the geological evolution of Glacier-like Forms on Mars’. As well as the winners, a panel of judges also selected runners-up for each competition, and there was also a people’s choice award.
Below is more information about the students who placed as winners and runners-up, and their respective research.
Three Minute Thesis Judges Winner: Conor J. Kelly
Thesis title: Northern Ireland’s Political Parties Shifting Stances on European Integration
What’s it about? Northern Ireland’s political parties have had a huge influence on political developments related to Brexit in recent years. But the parties themselves have often presented contrasting positions on whether they support European integration since Ireland and the UK joined in 1973. There is literature on how parties form their positions on the EU. However, I argue Northern Ireland presents a somewhat unique case, and I try to show why you need to go beyond the current literature on political parties in order to understand how they behave towards Europe.
Why this research? I grew up in Donegal, near the Irish border and I’ve always been interested in the politics and history of Ireland. The 2016 Brexit referendum brought the politics of Northern Ireland back to the top of the political agenda in Ireland, the UK, and the European Union. My thesis is trying to make sense of one dimension of a complicated but fascinating set of political dynamics.
What’s your background? I did my BA at the University of Galway in Ireland and then studied for an MA at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Prior to coming to Birkbeck in 2018 to do a MRes and then a PhD, I had a variety of different jobs in not-for-profit fundraising in New York and London.
Three Minute Thesis Runner-up: Jo Brydon-Dickenson
Thesis title: Percy Grainger and Trans Identity in Edwardian England
What’s it about? It’s about a musician who wrote a lot about gender and sexuality in their private letters and diaries. I’m using those documents to try to piece together some understanding of what it was like to be trans in London in the early twentieth century and how people like Percy Grainger might have understood themselves.
Why this research? A lot of trans history before the 1950s is built upon court records and newspaper articles, and it’s very rare that we get to hear trans people speaking for ourselves. So, when I came across these documents with Grainger expressing thoughts that will probably seem quite familiar to a lot of trans people today, I thought it was important to take the time to unpick them and show how they might help us understand the trans past.
What’s your background? Before this, I was doing a Master’s at Reading and a degree at Sussex, both with a focus on music and gender in history. My background also includes a lot of performing music, so I love the opportunity to bring the things that I’ve learned as a musician into my research.
Three Minute Thesis People’s Choice Winner: Allison McKibban
Thesis Title: An Era of Violence: Confronting Colonialism in the U.S. Violence Against Women Act (1994-Present)
What’s it about? While laws regulating sexual violence are used by governments around the world, it remains a global health crisis. For 30 years, the U.S. Violence Against Women Act has addressed sexual violence, and in particular, violence against Indigenous women. My research questions why this set of laws hasn’t prevented the violence, through uncovering the ingrained beliefs beneath the words written in the more than 2000 pages of legislation.
Why this research? The United States government has enacted violence against Indigenous communities for centuries. However, as a U.S. citizen, I never learned of this ongoing colonization until I was in university. My research pushes back on my own government’s violent policies, but also has compelled me to do activist work to restore land to Indigenous peoples.
What’s your background? Before Birkbeck, I worked in government affairs in the US and attended LSE and Oxford to study for master’s degrees related to law, gender, and history.
Poster Competition Winner: Graham Driver
Thesis Title: Exploring the Geomorphological Evolution of Glacier-Like Forms on Mars
What’s it about? The mid-latitudes of Mars are populated by numerous water-ice-rich landforms known as Glacier-Like Forms (GLFs) that are similar in appearance to valley glaciers found on Earth. Little is known about these glaciers and how they have evolved over time. Using data collected by orbiting spacecraft, and computer climate modelling, I am attempting to provide insight into the geological evolution of these landforms and discover what environmental factors influence glacial evolution on Mars.
Why this research? I have always been interested in space exploration and geology, particularly in geomorphology and how landscapes are formed. When you think of Mars, you think of a dry, cold, dead planet, not an active landscape with large glaciers on its surface. The difference between what I had known about Mars before and the excitement of what I could discover exploring another planet drew me to this research. It’s an amazing privilege to have the opportunity to look at Mars every day from images I have requested from spacecraft 140 million miles away.
What’s your background? Like many Birkbeck alumni I was working a steady job when, aged 30, I decided to go back to university to study something I have always been passionate about: planetary science. I worked full-time whilst completing my degree at Birkbeck, and graduated in 2019. In 2020, this PhD was advertised at Birkbeck, and I was fortunate enough to be selected for the position. Now I’ve had the opportunity to teach one of the modules which got me here and help other students towards their goals of exploring the geology of our solar system.
Poster Competition Runner-up: Laura Phillips-Farmer
Thesis title: Where structural and individual factors interplay: Building on the pathways approach to homelessness
What’s it about? It’s about looking at the factors involved in why and how people come to face homelessness in the UK. Currently, research is split between ‘individual factors’ or ’structural factors’ or episodes of both types of factors. I would like to explore the spaces where they interplay using Life Course Theory and by focusing particularly on families.
Why this research? Homelessness in the UK is a crisis that many take for granted. Comparisons between countries show that policy makes a huge difference, but it is highly contested over. I wanted to provide research that would give some weight to arguments in these areas. I was keen to slightly dismantle this idea that there’s always going to be some people who are safely in housing and some people who don’t get that, and that there’s something inherent about ’those people’. Homelessness charities sometimes make the point that “we’re all only one or two months of pay away from being homeless”, but it’s more complicated than that, with inequalities being deeper rooted. I want my research to help people tackle that complexity.
What’s your background? I’ve worked as a youth worker, managed a winter night shelter project, and also a support worker for a homelessness charity. I took the Birkbeck conversion MSc in 2019-20, studied a health and social psychology MSc at Maastricht University in the Netherlands the following year, and began my PhD in the summer of 2021.
Poster Competition Runner-up: Clau Di Gianfrancesco
Thesis title: Collective Practices of Undoing and Unbecoming: Masculinity and Theatre of the Oppressed
What’s it about? I am investigating the potentialities held by participatory theatrical practices, and more specifically of Theatre of the Oppressed, in troubling and re-imagining gender and masculinity. In my work, I consider the work of decolonial, antiracist, queer, and feminist thinkers – and specifically, those who have used theatre and performances as privileged sites to question and trouble gender normativity. My aim is to investigate theoretical and practical ways of doing and undoing gender and masculinity. I am using an ethnographic approach, detailing my experience with companies working with Theatre of the Oppressed in different parts of the world.
Why this research? I have been interested in questions pertaining to gender, theatre and gender performances since my BA in Psychology. I find theatre an incredibly helpful and productive medium to explore questions of identity and gender. Given my added interest in collaborative storytelling and collective imagination, I think that theatre and performance offer privileged sites for such rich, artistic, multi-sensorial, embodied and collaborative ways.
What’s your background? While studying for my BA in Psychology, I saw my first Theatre of the Oppressed play which I was so profoundly struck by it that it informed my dissertation. After my BA, I did a Master’s in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, where I learned about a rich variety of theories and methodological approaches and encountered a vibrant community of postgraduate students. After a year of working as a Research Assistant at Goldsmiths in the Department of Sociology, I was awarded the UBEL, ESRC 3+1 scholarship which is currently funding my PhD research.
BGRS Poster Competition 2023
Thursday 25 May 2023
Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS) invites you to enter a Postgraduate Research Student Poster Competition, which will be held on campus alongside the 3 Minute Thesis Competition on Thursday 25 May from 6pm.
This Poster Competition is open to all doctoral researchers at Birkbeck and provides an excellent opportunity for you to present your research, practice your communication skills, to network with other doctoral researchers and to celebrate your work.
Prizes
- The winner of the first prize will receive £150 and a certificate
- Two runners up will be awarded certificates and £75 each
Poster requirements
- You should create a research poster that explains complex research to a mixed audience of non-subject specialists.
- Your poster should be formatted for printing as A0 in size and in portrait orientation.
What is involved?
- Your poster will be displayed on a poster board, with an in-person judging session during a reception after the 3 Minute Thesis Competition.
- You will be invited to attend your poster during the judging session and so that attendees can speak with you about your research.
How to enter
- If you would like to enter the competition please complete this Entry Form by Tuesday 16 May.
- In order to be printed (we will pay for your entry to be printed) you will need to send your completed poster as a .pdf to graduateresearchschool@bbk.ac.uk no later than midday Monday 22 May.
Training available
For all those taking part in the competition we are organising a workshop to help you produce your poster.
Regardless of whether you are planning to enter the 3 Minute Thesis Competition or enter this BGRS Poster Competition please do mark 6pm Thursday 25 May in your diaries for these exciting events.
Three Minute Thesis Training sessions
The BGRS is pleased to announce the 2023 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 25 May from 6pm. Please mark this date in your diaries!
Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 25 May 2023
Join a selection of Birkbeck PhD students as they compete to communicate their compelling thesis topics in just three minutes. This event is a fantastic opportunity to share and celebrate the interests and successes of PhD researchers from across the College and we invite all current Birkbeck PhD students to take part. The winner of the Birkbeck competition will be chosen by an expert panel of judges who will award:
- £500 to the overall winner
- £250 to the runner up
- The audience will also have their say by picking a people’s choice winner who’ll win a special prize.
Training Sessions
As part of our support for the competition, a free programme of training sessions has been arranged. All potential 3MT competitors should attend these sessions. However, any or all of them are open to any doctoral researcher at Birkbeck who would like to gain skills in these areas:
- Session 1: An introduction to 3MT and how to present a lightning talk – Thursday 11 May 3-4pm
- Session 2: How to break down your PhD into a lightning talk – Monday 15 May 11am-1pm
- Session 3: Presenting Skills – Thursday 18 May 2-4pm
What is it like to take part in 3MT?
Some of last year’s contenders have kindly shared what they gained from partaking.
Marie Houghton said that it ‘helped me to clarify exactly what I think the main message of my PhD is’ and that she ‘would definitely recommend taking part in the 3MT to any other PhD students.’
Hannah Reeves also said that the competition allowed her to ‘think about what matters most about my research – what do I care about, what do the community I’m working with care about, and what will this audience care about.’ She also described herself as nervous about the experience of being on stage but ‘the training helped to develop a mutually supportive atmosphere.’
Doyin Olorunfemi described how ‘the exercise of delivering a concise speech gives you clarity of mind as a researcher and clarifies your contribution.’ She would ‘highly recommend the competition.’
2023 Birkbeck 3-minute Thesis competition: Join the audience on Thursday 25 May
On Thursday 25 May, an expert panel of judges will decide which Birkbeck student has presented the most compelling, convincing, and concise summary of their thesis. There’s a lot at stake: not only the prestige of winning and the confidence that goes with it, but also –
- £500 to the overall winner
- £250 to the runner-up

This is the headline BGRS event of the year
This is an event for all doctoral researchers and also for anyone interested in studying for a PhD. The event will be followed by a drinks reception and a chance to view entries to the BGRS Poster Competition.
During the reception prizes will be awarded to the 3 Minute Thesis Competition and the Poster Competition winners.
Register to attend
You can be part of the audience for this year’s Three Minute Thesis Competition.
Registration is now open for this event
As part of the audience you will have a vote to decide who is the People’s Choice. You can also join the Birkbeck postgraduate community in celebrating the diversity of research interests undertaken here, and raise a glass to that with a drinks reception after the winners have been announced.
If you would like to participate in this year’s competition please see this post for more information.
Three Minute Thesis Competition 2022
On Thursday 16 June, Birkbeck doctoral students took part in the 2022 Three Minute Thesis Competition. Meiyun Meng was the overall winner and received a £500 prize.

2022 3MT Competition
On Thursday 16 June around 60 people attended the Birkbeck Three Minute Thesis Competition in the Clore Lecture Theatre. This was the fourth time the competition has been run at Birkbeck and the first time since 2019. The seven contestants displayed excellent presentational skills to convey their research in a concise and engaging manner, all managing to conclude with just a few seconds to spare. As always at Birkbeck, there was a wide range of subjects from how cross-sectional data can help cure cancer to the experience of flat sharing among the over-30s.
Winner: Meiyun Meng

After the judges had watched the candidates make their presentations, Meiyun Meng (Department of Geography) was chosen as the overall winner for her lively and engaging talk ‘Individualising life courses: Home-making of highly educated women in Shenzhen, China’. Meiyun is in her third year as a doctoral researcher in Geography.
Runner up: Doyin Olorunfemi

In addition to the overall winner, the judges awarded a £250 runner up prize to Doyin Olorunfemi (Department of Management) for her talk on ‘From Selling to Venturing’.
People’s Prize Winner
The overall winner and runner up were chosen by a panel of 3 Birkbeck experts but the audience also played a key role and were asked to use their votes to select a People’s Choice winner. This prize was awarded to Hannah Reeves (Department of Psychosocial Studies) for her talk ‘Crossbones Graveyard: remembering the dead, or breathing with them?‘

2022 3MT Talks
A list of all the competitors and their talks is provided below.







2022 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition: Join the Audience on 16 June
Registration now open for this event
You can be part of the audience for this year’s Three Minute Thesis Competition. On Thursday 16 June, an expert panel of judges will decide which Birkbeck student has presented the most compelling, convincing, and concise summary of their thesis. There’s a lot at stake: not only the prestige of winning and the confidence that goes with it, but also –
- £500 to the overall winner
- £250 to the runner-up
As part of the audience you will have a vote to decide who is the People’s Choice. You can also join the Birkbeck postgraduate community in celebrating the diversity of research interests undertaken here, and raise a glass to that with a drinks reception after the winners have been announced.
Register now to be part of the audience.
Three Minute Thesis Training sessions
The BGRS is pleased to announce the 2022 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 16 June from 6pm. Please mark this date in your diaries! This will be the first competition to have taken place in person since 2019.
Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 16 June 2022
Join a selection of Birkbeck PhD students as they compete to communicate their compelling thesis topics in just three minutes. This event is a fantastic opportunity to share and celebrate the interests and successes of PhD researchers from across the College and we invite all current Birkbeck PhD students to take part. The winner of the Birkbeck competition will be chosen by an expert panel of judges who will award:
- £500 to the overall winner
- £250 to the runner up
- The audience will also have their say by picking a people’s choice winner who’ll win a special prize.
Training Sessions
As part of our support for the competition, a free programme of training sessions has been arranged. All potential 3MT competitors should attend these sessions. However, any or all of them are open to any doctoral researcher at Birkbeck who would like to gain skills in these areas:
- Session 1: An introduction to 3MT and how to present a lightning talk – Thursday 5 May 11:00-12:00
- Session 2: How to break down your PhD into a lightning talk – Thursday 12 May 11:00-13:00
- Session 3: Presenting Skills – Thursday 19 May 11:00-13:00
What is it like to take part in 3MT?
You can read more about what it was like to take part in the 2018 and 2019 3MT competitions in the following BGRS blog posts:
- Cathy Rogers
- Keith Jarrett (2018 Winner)
- Gabriella McGrogan (2019 winner)
- Janette Leaf (2019 Runner Up)
This is an international event and the Birkbeck winner will have the opportunity to continue on to the UK semi-finals later in the year.
Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition 2022
Registration is now open for the 2022 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 16 June from 6pm.
You can register to attend this exciting event here
Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 16 June 2022
Join a selection of Birkbeck PhD students as they compete to communicate their compelling thesis topics in just three minutes. This event has provided some outstanding opportunities to share and celebrate the interests and successes of PhD researchers from across the College and we will invite all current Birkbeck PhD students to take part. The winner of the Birkbeck competition will be chosen by an expert panel of judges who will award:
- £500 to the overall winner
- £250 to the runner up
- The audience will also have their say by picking a people’s choice winner who’ll win a special prize.
About the competition
The Birkbeck winner will be eligible to enter the UK round of this international competition.
How to compete
You can read more about what it was like to take part in the 2018 and 2019 3MT competitions in the following BGRS blog posts:
- Cathy Rogers
- Keith Jarrett (2018 Winner)
- Gabriella McGrogan (2019 winner)
- Janette Leaf (2019 Runner Up)
All potential competitors for the Birkbeck Three Minute Thesis Competition will be invited to attend training sessions which will prepare them and will provide useful skills beyond the competition.
This is an international event and the Birkbeck winner will have the opportunity to continue on to the UK semi-finals later in the year.
Registration
Registration is open in 2022 and you can find details of how to attend the competition here.
Janette Leaf on the 2019 Three Minute Thesis Competition

Why did I go in for it?
I guess what prompted me to go in for the Three Minute Thesis was the sheer challenge of whether I would be able to sum up my research in a short time and in a way that would appeal to a broad audience. Whenever anyone outside my area of specialism asks me what my PhD is all about, I tend to say, ‘insect imagery’ and then try to gauge how much more detail to go into. My hope for this competition was that it would give me a boost to expand upon my two-word ‘insect imagery’ answer without the equivalent of giving a full-blown paper, and I’m pleased that condensing the thesis into a maximum of 180 seconds really did help me concentrate on what’s attention grabbing and interesting in my work. It also revealed a clear trajectory from horror to ecology. I wondered if my supervisor might think I was crazy to compete, but he was happy for me to go for it and that was a nice endorsement in itself.
Supportive environment
Anyone who puts themselves forward for the Three Minute Thesis is given a short training session in presentation skills, and I went along to the workshop feeling slightly uncertain whether I would have the confidence to enter the competition. There was absolutely no pressure to take it all the way. A few chose not to, but most of us did follow through and we really enjoyed the experience. During the training as well as on the evening itself everything took place in an incredibly supportive environment. Even though students were competing against each other the overriding feeling was that we were all in the same boat sharing the same nervousness and the same excitement, and so there was lots of mutual help and encouragement.
Presenting a paper free paper
I took my first degree in the 1980s and my return to academia (part time) is a comparatively recent phenomenon. My business career has so far spanned marketing, transport logistics and property legislation, but never involved presenting to a large group of people against the clock. I felt quite exposed talking about a research project designed by me, supported by only one slide and without the benefit of any written prompts. Outside of university I perform with two choirs, so if I’m on a stage I’m fairly used to singing somebody else’s words. Speaking my own words about my own special interest to an audience and panel of judges is a different matter entirely. My thesis is on ‘Locating the Sympathetic Insect’, and I like to think of it as wonderful and weird. The primary focus is on prose literature, whilst also incorporating art and film and entomological science, and I’m absolutely thrilled it was so well received. Before the Three Minute Thesis competition I’d presented at a small number of conferences and had positive feedback, but I’d never done it without holding onto my notes. I now feel I have the unhampered ability to put aside those pieces of paper so I can talk in a more spontaneous and engaging way at future events. And that’s important to me as I am keen for my research to have the best possible impact.
I’ve got the competition to thank for that leap and would encourage any fellow PhD to participate.