Engineering Faculty Three Minute Thesis (3MT) final
Five PhD students representing each of the Departments in the Faculty of Engineering faced off on Tuesday 4 July in the final of the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.
Tackling some of the modern world’s most complex technological challenges is hard enough, but explaining a PhD project succinctly and entertainingly in three minutes takes particular skill, as the Dean of the Faculty, Professor Yiannis Ventikos, acknowledged when he quoted words attributed to Mark Twain: “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
In her presentation “Waste to Wealth”, Parisa Biniaz from Chemical and Biological Engineering described her research focused on uncovering new, greener and more efficient ways of recovering valuable critical minerals from discarded batteries and electronic gear.
Kamlika Gupta of Civil Engineering gave an evocative account of her detailed investigations into air quality near open-cut coal mines in India and evidence of its impact on the health of residents in the area.
Kareeb Hasan of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering is combining Lidar (light detection and ranging) and radar to develop a system that can track human movement in public spaces without the intrusiveness and loss of private data associated with CCTV.
Representing Materials Science and Engineering, Fergus McLaren outlined his eye-opening work on the exciting potential of plasmonic catalysis using silver-platinum nanotriangles for breaking down CO2.
And finally, Nina Langer of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering described her work developing and evaluating a new artificial heart for people with the complex form of heart failure known as HFpEF (heart failure with preserved ejection fraction).
After due deliberation, the judges - Professor Nicoleta Maynard, Professor Murray Rudman and Dr Bill Corcoran - awarded second prize to Parisa Biniaz and first prize to Fergus McLaren, who will now go on to represent the Faculty of Engineering in the Monash-wide 3MT final.
