91��ý celebrates graduate students for rising to the Three Minute Thesis challenge

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State’s Graduate School is honoring eight students for outstanding research presentations during the university’s seventh annual Three Minute Thesis competition.

The recent virtual event challenged 20 graduate students to present their research ideas and discoveries in three minutes or less. A panel of academic and non-academic professionals judged the presentations students gave to a non-specialist audience via Webex.

Portrait of Vicky Huang — Ying-Chen "Vicky" Huang (Submitted photo)

Portrait of Brittany Szafran — Brittany Szafran (Submitted photo)

Portrait of Oumnia El Fajri — Oumnia El Fajri (Submitted photo)

The judges selected Ying-Chen “Vicky” Huang, a food science, nutrition and health promotion doctoral student from Chiayi, Taiwan, as this year’s 3MT Grand Champion for her presentation “Dietary Selenium Deficiency and Reshaped Gut Bacteria Alter Insulin Signaling In Mice.” In addition to a $1,000 prize, Huang receives the honor of competing at the regional level during the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools’ virtual annual conference Feb. 24-26, 2021.

Brittany N. Szafran of Moundsville, West Virginia, an environmental toxicology doctoral student in 91��ý’s College of Veterinary Medicine, earned the designation of Grand Champion Runner-Up and a $750 prize with her presentation “Tipping the Lung Immune Balance.”

Online viewers voted Oumnia El Fajri, an engineering/mechanical engineering doctoral student from Casablanca, Morocco, for the $750 People’s Choice Award. Her presentation was titled “Virtual Design of Hydrokinetic Farm.”

Finalists received $250 awards. They include: —Sachini Kodithuwakku Arachchige, a kinesiology/exercise science doctoral student from Ratmalana, Sri Lanka, “Impact of Prolonged Exposure to Slippery Surface on Static Postural Stability.”

—Patricia de Carvalho Obeid Ellrich, a veterinary medical science doctoral student from Brasilia, Brazil, “Halogenated Anesthetics Loaded-Lipid Emulsions Preconditioning Effect in Canine Primary Hepatocytes: In Vitro Study.”

—Mary Gracen A. “Grace” Fuller, a plant and soil sciences master’s student from Biloxi, “Improving Cotton, the Fabric of Your Life.”

—Lindsay Mullins, an environmental geoscience master’s student from Dumfries, Virginia, “Saving Baby Shark.”

—Keri L. Porter, an applied anthropology master’s student from Greenville, Texas, “A Digital Bioarchaeology: The Application of Photogrammetry for the Recording and Analysis of Cranial Depression Fractures from the Mississippi State Asylum.”