Image: UWA's entrants in the Matariki Network of Universities' Three Minute Thesis competition: Courtney Weber, Olivia Johnston and Chayan Chatterjee.

UWA PhD student Olivia Johnston has been awarded runner up in the Matariki Network of Universities’ Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.

Bringing together students from UWA, Queen’s University, Durham University and the University of Otago, the competition challenges research students to communicate the significance of their projects to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes.

Olivia, who recently submitted her thesis in education, delivered a presentation called ‘Teacher, I care that you C.A.R.E.’

A qualified teacher, Olivia wrote her PhD thesis on teachers’ expectations of students. She is particularly interested in how schools and teachers perpetuate disadvantage, and what we might be able to do to challenge and change that.

Olivia said she enjoyed taking part in the 3MT.

“While it was a challenge to get my speech down to three minutes and then memorise it (I rehearsed while on a six-day hike on the Bibbulmun Track!), the experience was a great adventure and helped me consolidate what I accomplished through my PhD,” she said.

UWA was also represented in the Matariki Network of Universities’ 3MT competition by Chayan Chatterjee from the School of Physics and Courtney Weber from the School of Population and Global Health.

The Three Minute Thesis competition format was first developed by the University of Queensland in 2008.

Watch Olivia’s presentation on Vimeo.