Pictured from left, Peyman Yousefi and Charles Kerby

CE graduate student Peyman Yousefi won the People's Choice Award while fellow grad student Charles Kerby was the overall runner-up in this year's Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition. 3MT® is an international research competition that challenges graduate students to effectively explain their research (and why it matters) in language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience. During this fast-paced competition, the top 10 finalist graduate students share their body of research in only three minutes with one slide. Excellent communication skills and the ability to "consolidate ideas and crystallize discoveries" are the key to a winning presentation.

Peyman Yousefi is a Ph.D. Candidate of Environmental Engineering and a cohort member of the Ecological Sciences and Engineering Interdisciplinary Graduate Program. He works under the supervision of Dr. David Yu and uses multi-method approaches to study the resilience of complex coupled systems in the face of uncertainty associated with climate change. The title of his presentation was ”It will Never Happen Again: The Myth of Disaster Immunity,” for which he won the People’s Choice Award in this year’s 3MT® competition.

Charles Kerby is a MS candidate of Structural Engineering advised by Dr. Ayhan Irfanoglu. He studies building response to earthquakes and operates the 144 ft2 uniaxial earthquake simulator at the Bowen Laboratory for Large Scale Civil Engineering Research. His 3-minute thesis speech, “Preserving Vulnerable Buildings: The Earthquake Response of a Novel Wood Infill,” was voted overall runner-up by the judge’s panel in the 2022 3MT® competition.

Purdue holds its annual 3MT® competition early each spring. It is a celebration of the discoveries made by graduate students and allows the community to learn about the ongoing research at Purdue. This year, the competition was held on April 12th at Loeb Theater on the campus of Purdue University.

More information on the 3MT® competition is available at https://www.purdue.edu/gradschool/professional-development/competitions/3mt/index.php

Charles Kerby receiving the award for second place finish in the 3MT competition

Linda Mason, Dean of the Graduate School, presenting Peyman Yousefi with the People's Choice Award