11th Annual Three Minute Thesis Competition: Our 2026 Winners, Announced

Georgia Tech's 11th annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition took place on Tuesday, April 7th, where 12 scholars presented their innovative research in just three minutes to a non-specialist audience. After five preliminary rounds and Tuesday’s climactic competition, five graduate students were named winners and awarded research travel grants. 

Congratulations to our 2026 Three Minute Thesis Winners: 

Overall Ph.D. Winner - $2,000 travel grant 

Shreya Kothari, Ph.D. Biological Sciences 

Harnessing Nature's Helpers: Discovering Bioemulsifiers to Help Clean Up Future Oil Spills 

First Runner-Up - $1,500 travel grant 

Shehan Parmar, Ph.D. Chemistry 

Discovering Thermoresponsive Ionic Liquids for Water Desalination 

Second Runner-Up - $1,000 travel grant 

Richard Asiamah, Ph.D. Electrical and Computer Engineering 

Development and Applications of Synthetic Electric Grid Models for Underrepresented Regions 

Master's Winner - $1,000 travel grant 

Jinchu Li, MS, Computer Science 

Predicting New Concept-Object Associations in Astronomy by Mining the Literature 

People's Choice Award Winner - $500 travel grant 

Hari Sridhara, Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering 

Solid-State Batteries: A Stronger and Safer Energy Storage Technology 

The Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Education coordinates Tech’s 3MT competition in partnership with the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), the Naugle Writing and Communications Center, and the Language Institute. For more information about this year’s 3MT Competition, visit grad.gatech.edu/3mt.