3MT 2026
2026 Cornell Graduate School Three Minute Thesis Competition
Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an international competition to help graduate students develop and showcase their research communication skills. The annual university-wide competition hosted by Cornell Graduate School challenges research-degree students to present their dissertation as a compelling story in just three minutes, with one slide, in language appropriate to a non-specialist audience.
Cornell Graduate School hosted its live final round of the 2026 3MT competition in-person on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 at 3:00 pm ET.
Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. Candidate Wins 2026 Three Minute Thesis Competition
“I hate to break it to you, but failure is inevitable—failure of materials, that is,” began Ellen van Wijngaarden, a mechanical engineering doctoral candidate, at the 11th Cornell University Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.
Alongside eight other finalists, van Wijngaarden presented her dissertation research in just three minutes on March 18 to a panel of judges and an audience from across campus while additional friends, family, advisors, and research group members watched online. Presentations were judged by how clearly and compellingly students summarized their research to a general audience, using only one static slide.
Van Wijngaarden’s presentation, “Cracking Down on Cracks: A Living Coating for Crack Detection,” earned her first place and $1,500. Second place and $1,000 was awarded to Subash Bhandari, a doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering for his presentation, “Fight Night: Nodes vs. Invaders.”
After nearly 170 in-person and virtual audience members cast their ballots, votes were tallied and the People’s Choice Award and $250 were presented to biomedical engineering doctoral candidate Aminat Ibrahim for her presentation, “Beyond Survival: Designing Living Heart Valves.”
The judges for Cornell’s 3MT included Erica Kryst, executive director of Cornell Career Services; Seph Murtagh, Ph.D. ’09, director of development for Catholic Charities of Tompkins/Tioga; Laura Reiley, writer for the Cornell Chronicle and host of the new Research Matters podcast; and Mark Sarvary, Ph.D. ‘06; Stephen H. Weiss Provost’s Teaching Fellow and director of the investigative biology teaching laboratories in the department of neurobiology and behavior. The competition was organized by the Graduate School Office of Career and Professional Development.
“I think it’s a really important exercise to communicate what you study,” said van Wijngaarden. “If you can’t explain what you study or research to an average person—I usually say to my grandmother—then you don’t really understand it. Doing a competition like this forces you to exercise that skill.”
Bhandari and Ibrahim, both of whom set a personal goal years ago to participate in a 3MT competition, also appreciated the challenge of conveying their research to a broad audience.
“It takes so much more time and lots of reiterations to craft a three minute pitch than it takes for you to prepare an hourlong presentation,” Bhandari said. “Valuing the art of scientific storytelling and putting your audience in your shoes when you’re thinking about communication is really important.”
In addition to enjoying the ability to practice presenting research to nonscientific audiences, Ibrahim enjoyed being part of the audience herself during the other finalists’ presentations and learning about research taking place across campus outside of her own field.
“You always have something to learn,” she said. “Looking at other people’s research, those are really amazing research projects going on here now.”
The 3MT competition was first held in 2008 at the University of Queensland and has since been adopted by over 900 universities in 85 countries. 3MT challenges research degree graduate students to present a compelling story on their dissertation or thesis and its significance in just three minutes, in language appropriate to a nonspecialist audience.
Cornell’s Graduate School first hosted a 3MT competition in 2015 and the event has grown steadily since that time. As the winner of Cornell’s competition, van Wijngaarden will now go on to compete in northeast regional competitions and the Ivy 3MT.
“Every one of our finalists did an excellent job taking their sophisticated, groundbreaking research and transforming it into a presentation that the general public could understand,” said Thomas A. Lewis, dean of the Graduate School and vice provost for graduate education. “This was my first 3MT as dean, and I am already looking forward to hearing what our students come up with next year.”
Final Round Competition
- The 2026 final round competition was held in person on March 18, 2026 at 3:00pm ET.
- At the live competition, First Place, Second Place and People’s Choice awards were selected by judges and audience members.
- The First Place winner is eligible to represent Cornell in any additional Ivy League or northeast regional competitions held in 2026.
Fill out the interest form to receive updates on future competitions. If you should have questions or concerns regarding the Cornell Graduate School 3MT Competition, please email us at: grad3mt@cornell.edu.
Finalists
First Place: Ellen van Wijngaarden, Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. Candidate
Advisor: Meredith Silberstein
Area of Research: Mechanics of materials
Title of 3MT Presentation: Cracking Down on Cracks: A Living Coating for Crack Detection
Biography: Ellen van Wijngaarden is working toward making science fiction a reality through biomanufacturing and designing biomaterials that can respond to stimuli, change material properties, and mitigate damage for applications in health care and infrastructure.
Second Place: Subash Bhandari, Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. Candidate
Advisors: Brian Rudd and Chris Xu
Area of Research: CD8 T-cells, intravital microscopy
Title of 3MT Presentation: Fight Night: Nodes vs. Invaders
Biography: Subash Bhandari was born and raised in Nepal. At Cornell, Subash is learning various microscopy techniques to study fundamental questions about how CD8 T-cells fight against viruses. He likes to describe his research as ‘playing laser tag with CD8 T-cells.’
Favorite Thing About Cornell: Nature walks
People’s Choice Award: Aminat Ibrahim, Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. Candidate
Advisor: Jonathan Butcher
Area of Research: Cardiovascular biomaterials and endothelial mechanobiology
Title of 3MT Presentation: Beyond Survival: Designing Living Heart Valves
Biography: Aminat Ibrahim’s research focuses on clot prevention in cardiovascular implants. She studies how engineered microstructures support endothelial cells that naturally prevent blood clotting. Using computational modeling and biological experiments, she aims to develop safer next-gen prosthetic valves.
Favorite Thing About Cornell: My favorite thing about Cornell is its diverse, collaborative, and supportive culture, which encourages exploration across disciplines.
Neti Bhatt, Physics Ph.D. Candidate
Advisor: Nozomi Ando
Area of Research: Biophysics
Title of 3MT Presentation: Protein Disco: Measuring the Dance of Life
Biography: Neti Bhatt earned her B.S. in physics from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is now studying protein dynamics using X-rays under the guidance of Nozomi Ando at Cornell.
Abbey Kalay, Biomedical and Biological Sciences Ph.D. Candidate
Advisor: Marla Lujan
Area of Research: Reproductive physiology
Title of 3MT Presentation: More Than Meets the Ovary: How Patterns Shape Women’s Health
Biography: Abbey Kalay received a B.S. in biomedical engineering in 2023. Her current research studies how ovarian morphology can be used to predict reproductive and metabolic outcomes. She aspires to improve the assessment of ovaries in ways that can translate to clinical practice.
Favorite Thing About Cornell: I love Cornell’s emphasis on reproductive biology and women’s health. The Cornell Reproductive Sciences Center (CoRe) brings together researchers from all across campus in exciting ways.
Katherine Koebel, D.V.M. ’23, Biomedical and Biological Sciences Ph.D. Candidate
Advisor: Renata Ivanek
Area of Research: Dairy cattle herd health
Title of 3MT Presentation: Take Two and Call Me in the Moo-rning: Understanding Antibiotic Use in Cows
Biography: Kat Koebel, D.V.M. ‘23, studies epidemiology. She has conducted research in livestock health all through undergrad and vet school, studying everything from protein in pig milk to grazing goats for invasive plant control. Her greatest passion, and current area of research, is dairy cattle herd health.
Favorite Thing About Cornell: The cows, and the ice cream they help make!
Jonathan Segal, Information Science Ph.D. Candidate
Advisor: Angelique Taylor
Area of Research: Augmented reality and team coordination
Title of 3MT Presentation: When Seconds Count: Inter-Team Coordination in Emergency Care
Biography: Jonathan Segal studies how technology can improve teamwork in high-stakes environments. Beginning with XR teamwork research at Iowa State University (B.S. ’22), his current work focuses on designing augmented reality systems to support emergency medical teams during patient handoffs. To better understand the domain, he became EMT certified.
Favorite Thing About Cornell: In addition to the amazing people and cutting-edge research at Cornell, one of my favorite things outside the lab is going to Big Red hockey games. Although I am now at Cornell Tech in New York City, I still try to make it back to Ithaca whenever I can to catch a game with friends.
Pia Spychalla, Plant Breeding Ph.D. Candidate
Advisor: Walter De Jong
Area of Research: Potato breeding and genetics with a focus on market class traits and disease resistance
Title of 3MT Presentation: Cracking the Genetic Code Behind Russet Potato Skin
Biography: Growing up on a potato farm in Wisconsin, Pia developed a love for potatoes at an early age. As an undergraduate, genetics courses turned that love into curiosity about what makes a potato a potato and how breeding can make better varieties. At Cornell, her research supports the potato breeding program to develop high-quality varieties for farmers.
Delia Tota, Microbiology Ph.D. Candidate
Advisor: Teresa Pawlowska
Area of Research: Molecular immunology and fungal-bacterial interactions
Title of 3MT Presentation: Fungal Innate Immunity: The Best Defense is a Good Defense
Biography: Delia Tota specializes in immunology and regulated cell death in fungal-bacterial interactions. Along with optimizing molecular protocols for under-studied fungi, Delia enjoys science communication including presenting at conferences and teaching in various courses. Outside lab, Delia takes a sometimes scientific approach to baking.
Favorite Thing About Cornell: The Cornell microbiology department contains faculty and labs conducting theoretical and applied research on a wide range of organisms and systems. This has presented me with the opportunity to explore a variety of techniques and collaborate with experts in different areas of life science. I’ve enjoyed opportunities to do interdisciplinary work.
Preliminary Round Competition
- All competitors must submit a recorded presentation of their talk by 12:00 p.m. ET on Monday, February 23, 2026 in order to compete in the Preliminary Round.
- All enrolled graduate research degree students at the research stage (with at least some results to share) are eligible. Past competitors who did not place, and are still enrolled as graduate research degree students this year are welcome to enter the competition again.
- Registration has now concluded and 2026 finalists have been selected. Kudos to all who submitted video entries!