Matt Owens is a Ph.D. candidate in the Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical Sciences Program and the winner of Larner’s preliminary round of UVM’s 2026 Three-Minute Thesis Competition.
In the following blog post, Owens describes his approach in explaining his research in three minutes or less.
“I used my single slide as an aid to tell my story, drawing parallels between complex cellular mechanisms and a busy city street becoming fraught with carjackings, taking the listener on an adventure through viral infection and cellular cargo.”
A Ph.D. in Three Minutes
Working toward your Ph.D. is really composed of two very different, but intertwined, goals. Preparing for UVM’s Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition made me realize I needed to apply both of those goals to be successful.
The first goal is to develop as a scientist: this means testing ideas across the boundary of what is known into unknown, contributing to a field of science, and proving you can be both deductive and inductive in your thought processes. The second goal is to develop as a communicator of science and understand your science well enough to distill it for any audience. Both goals presented their own sets of challenges as I prepared for the competition; they required me to think critically about my scientific question and be able to clearly describe my research.
Effective communication is the basis of all scientific literature and discussion; it’s how we talk about new ideas and share results. In preparing for my talk, I learned that communication inherently requires us to know our audience, to take complex ideas, and to translate them into digestible portions that everyone can understand.
For example, describing a virus to experts in the field is just as unique and nuanced a challenge as describing it to a middle schooler. Each of those experiences requires a different level of communication. So, when I heard about the 3MT competition, I knew it would be an excellent exercise in talking to a diverse audience about my research and why it’s important.
A Biological Carjacking
I approached my talk at the preliminary 3MT competition, wanting to find a way to craft the complex virology, molecular biology, cellular biology, and biochemistry findings into a story that anyone could close their eyes and understand. A tale of a city, delivery trucks, highways, drivers, and hijackers who steal trucks to deliver their own packages. As I began preparing, I tested different ways of describing my research.
If I told you, “I’m trying to identify the specific amino acids that govern host protein Rab11a’s ability to bind the influenza protein PB2,” that might be the right audience for an academic conference, but not the right audience for the 3MT competition. If I told you, “I’m studying the molecular mechanisms that govern how the influenza virus disrupts the endocytic recycling pathway, trafficking its genetic information to the site of budding at the plasma membrane,” that might be suitable for a different audience. But if I told you that the influenza virus commits Cellular Grand Theft Auto, I bet I have your attention now.
In your mind, you might be picturing a busy city and a tiny cartoon virus hijacking a taxicab, or a delivery truck. Finding the right framing became one of the most important parts of my preparation.
Practicing my framing for a diverse audience was another equally important part. I asked my peers, family, and friends to listen to my 3MT competition presentation and offer advice on what aspects were easy or hard to understand, what worked and didn’t.
Dress Rehearsal
Once I had a story that I wanted to tell, it all came down to practice and memorization.
I used my single slide as an aid to tell my story, drawing parallels between complex cellular mechanisms and a busy city street becoming fraught with carjackings, taking the listener on an adventure through viral infection and cellular cargo. I wanted to paint a picture in the mind of my audience to help them understand how the influenza virus uses the machinery inside our cells to transport its own cargo; a process that is essential for replication and spread.
If you want to hear the full three minute presentation though, you’ll have to attend the UVM-wide final competition on Wednesday, April 15th, 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. in Fleming 101. No spoilers!
Learning and Growing
From a training and growth standpoint, I highly recommend participating in the 3MT competition if you’re interested in developing as a scientist and as a communicator of science.
Three minutes is by no means enough time to describe your research in the detail suitable for a dissertation; the 3MT competition teaches you how to effectively condense your science into a digestible format for anyone to understand.
The 3MT competition will prepare you to discuss your research with a diverse audience in an outside-the-box, engaging way in only three minutes. It will push you to think about new ways to connect with your audience that you will carry with you throughout your Ph.D.