FASS Three Minute Thesis

One slide…three minutes…cash prizes! Open to all FASS graduate students, the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition challenges students to present their thesis and its significance in just three minutes to a general audience. 

If you have any questions regarding the FASS 3MT heat, please email fasssec@sfu.ca.

Prizes

  • First place winner: $400
  • Second place winner: $200
  • People’s Choice winner: $200

The First Place winner and the People’s Choice winner will move forward to the SFU-wide final on April 10, 2025.

Why Participate?

  • A great way to get your research noticed by the general public
  • Build your presentation and public speaking skills
  • Develop your knowledge translation skills — something research funders look for in students
  • Opportunity to meet other graduate students and find out about the interesting research going on, both within and beyond FASS 

More information about the SFU, National, and International 3MT competitions can be found at SFU Graduate Studies and the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies.

2025 FASS 3MT Heat

  • March 13 (Thursday) 
  • 1:00pm
  • Big Data Hub, ASB 10900

Registration deadline: March 2 at midnight

Register Now

Eligibility 

Any student who is active in an SFU Master's or PhD FASS program is eligible to participate in the FASS 3MT heat. Alumni are not eligible.

We welcome all our graduate students in SFU’s university-level competition, however non-thesis students are not able to compete at the Western Regional or the National 3MT Competitions. (The top SFU thesis-based finalist will proceed to those events.)

Your presentation should be directly related to your graduate research and thesis/dissertation. Your research does not have to be completed.

Want to learn more? 

Curious to learn more about 3MT as well as tips and tricks on how to prepare for your presentation? Watch the info session recording below. 

Past winners

2024

First Place winner and People's Choice winner

Eva Ribbers
PhD in Law and Forensic Psychology 
Preventing Miscarriages of Justice by Improving Judicial Assessment of Eyewitness Identification Evidence 

Second Place winner (Tied)

Nathan Collins
MA in Global Humanities 
A Psychoanalytic Inquiry into Social Photography and the Subject

Second Place winner (Tied)

Vanja Vekic
MA in Linguistics
Harry Potter and the Existential There

See recap post

2023

First Place winner and People's Choice winner

Dasha Gluhareva
PhD in Linguistics
Dynamic Self- and Other-Assessment of Second Language Speech 

Second Place winner 

Mariana Pinzon-Caicedo
MA in Sociology and Anthropology
Victim's Speech-Acts in Transitional Justice Systems

People's Choice winner

Farinaz Rikhtehgaran
MA in Gerontology
Walkable Neighbourhoods for Immigrant Older Adults

See recap post