3 Minute Thesis Competition 2026
3 Minute Thesis Competition
Thursday 18 June 2026
17:30 – 20:30 (BST)
Fyvie Hall, 309 Regent St., London W1B 2HT
Doors open from 17:00 (BST) with the event starting promptly at 17:30
The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia (threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au).
The competition gives doctoral researchers a chance to communicate the importance of their research beyond their discipline and their peers — in three minutes, with no notes and with only one slide.
This year the event will be compered by Professor Steve Cross. It’s a brilliant opportunity to hear about the research done by some of our doctoral researchers and to support those taking part.
The doctoral researchers taking part this year are: Success Ajayi, Sarah Brandow, Bipasha De, Lutfunnahar Disha, Sanika Ghayal, Fabia Mone, Akma Nazar, Mark O’Neill, Yashvi Patel, Oscar Sanchez, Daniella Sykes-McGibbon and Greta Westwood.
The winner will be chosen by our invited panel of judges and will be entered into the national Vitae competition.
This year’s judges are: Dr Margherita Sprio, Professor Dame Judith Petts, and Abdiqani Ibrahim Osman.
Attendees will also have a chance to vote for their favourite in the People’s Vote. Do come along and support your peers and vote for your favourite.
Meet the participants…
Success Ajayi
Success Ajayi is a third-year PhD researcher in Physiology in the School of Life Sciences, University of Westminster. His research explores heart rate adaptations to extreme exercise, aiming to uncover the mechanisms of cardiovascular resilience, primarily, how the heart responds, withstands stress, and recovers under prolonged endurance conditions.
Sarah Brandow
Sarah Brandow is a nutritionist and PhD researcher at the University of Westminster, specialising in the gut microbiome and women’s hormonal health. Her research explores how diet influences the gut–estrobolome axis and oestrogen metabolism, with implications for breast cancer prevention and evidence-based nutrition strategies.
Bipasha De
Bipasha De is a first-year PhD student in Westminster Business School. She holds an MBA from Cardiff University, and a BTech from India, and has work experience in customer service at Starling Bank. Bipasha’s research mission is to make the customer service journey in banking services smoother by exploring the accountability gap faced while using Agentic AI. She is looking to build a training module that integrates her research and to start a financial training consultancy firm supporting banking specialists.
Lutfunnahar Disha
Lutfunnahar Disha is a business researcher with a background in accounting and internal audit. She holds an MBA from Ulster University and focuses on sustainability, innovation, and digital transformation, particularly exploring how gamification can encourage environmentally responsible behaviour and green technology adoption within organisations.
Sanika Ghayal
Sanika Ghayal is a first-year PhD student in the School of Life Sciences with a background in immunology and space health research. Her work focuses on harnessing anti-inflammatory and pro-resolution pathways to develop novel therapies for osteoarthritis, aiming to improve quality of life and advance musculoskeletal health in extreme environments.
Fabia Mone
Fabia Mone is a first-year PhD researcher in the School of Life Sciences. Her work explores inequalities and cultural needs in food and nutrition for palliative and end-of-life care. Driven by her experience as a carer, she combines clinical insight and public health nutrition to highlight system gaps and amplify community voices.
Akma Nazar
Akma Nazar is a PhD candidate in the School of Architecture and Cities, researching gender and culture in Indian Muslim homes. Her research interests include women’s spatial agency, post-colonial Indian housing, and critical-feminist methodologies, including oral histories and feminine writing. She teaches architectural history and theory modules at the University of Westminster.
Mark O’Neill
Mark O’Neill is a Doctoral Researcher in the School of Law, whose work is exploring football club ownership regulations and how it aligns with fan perceptions of good ownership. This will cover the historical analysis of ownership and its regulation, fans’ role as a stakeholder, and how they view ownership.
Oscar Sanchez
Oscar Sanchez is a doctoral researcher in finance at the University of Westminster. Educated in Spain, Germany, the UK and China, he has lived in five countries and travelled to more than one hundred. He works in financial markets, and researches how ESG factors influence investment and economic development in emerging economies.
Daniella Sykes-McGibbon
Daniella Sykes-McGibbon is a first-year doctoral researcher studying Social and Political Psychology. She also holds a Master of Science in Clinical Psychology. Her research centres on unpacking the role of social identity and belonging in political disengagement among youth in the United Kingdom and in Jamaica.
Greta Westwood
Greta Westwood is a first-year PhD student exploring the relationship between grassroots music nights and neurodivergence.
She holds an MA in Global Creative and Cultural Industries and worked as a professional videographer and video editor before recently joining the CREAM department at the University of Westminster.
Meet the judges…
Dr Margherita Sprio
Dr Margherita Sprio is Reader in Film and Visual Culture, School of Arts, and is Head of the Graduate School at the University of Westminster. She studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths (University of London) and The Slade School of Art (University College London) and then worked for a time showing her work internationally before completing her PhD at Goldsmiths.
Margherita moved from making photographic and film works to writing and teaching about film and visual culture. She joined the University of Westminster in 2011 and has previously taught at a number of institutions in the UK including Birkbeck College, Goldsmiths, Middlesex University, Central St Martins and University of Essex.
She is also the author of Migrant Memories: Cultural History, Cinema and the Italian Post-War Diaspora in Britain (Peter Lang, 2013) and is currently working on her forthcoming book, Women in the Frame: Feminist Intimacies on the British Screen (Bloomsbury Academic).
Mr Abdiqani Osman
Abdiqani is a fourth-year doctoral researcher in Biotechnology and a 2023 national Vitae 3MT semi-finalist. His research focuses on developing molecular screening tools to detect the phaC synthase gene in novel bacteria for polyhydroxyalkanoates production, supporting sustainable alternatives to conventional plastics. He holds degrees in Biomedical Science, Molecular Medicine, and PGCE from the University of Westminster and University College London and has published his research in leading journals in the field. Abdiqani is also a secondary school science teacher and subject lead at a top-performing London school, where he enjoys inspiring future scientists.
Professor Dame Judith Petts
Professor Dame Judith Petts retired in September 2024 as Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of the University of Plymouth, a post she held for almost 9 years. In a 45-year career in higher education, senior roles included as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Transfer at both Birmingham and Southampton Universities.
She is a member of the Board of the Marine Management Organisation, a Trustee of the Marine Biological Association and chairs the Energy Programme Board for the Great South-West Pan Regional Partnership. Previous external appointments include as a member of the Council of BBSRC (2014-18) and NERC (2000-6); the Science Advisory Council of Defra (2011-16), and the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (2006-11). She was a Director of the Heart of the South-West Local Economic Partnership (2016-24) and chaired the Universities UK Climate Action Steering Group.
She was appointed CBE in 2012, for services to Scientific Research, and Dame Commander in the King’s Birthday Honours 2024, for services to Higher Education and Sustainability.
The 3MT Coaches 2026
Our coaches have dedicated a huge amount of time, energy and support for this year’s contestants and we would like to say a special thank you to them:
Professor Lewis Dartnell
Lewis Dartnell holds the Professorship in Science Communication at the University of Westminster and is based in the School of Life Sciences. His research is in the field of astrobiology and the search for microbial life on Mars.
He graduated from Oxford University with a First-Class degree in Biological Sciences and completed his PhD at University College London in 2007.
He has also held a STFC Science in Society Fellowship and is very active in delivering live events at schools and science festivals, working as a scientific consultant for the media, and has appeared in numerous TV documentaries and radio shows.
Dr Bradley Elliott
As a passionate and active research scientist, I believe that the effective communication of scientific knowledge is as important as the discovery itself. To this end, besides my ‘day job’ as Senior Lecturer in Physiology in the Ageing Biology & Age-Related Diseases group at the University of Westminster, my contributions to policy discussions, and my trustee’s role with the British Society for Research on Ageing, I regularly take part in on screen and print media science communication. I’ve produced and hosted science outreach podcasts, and have filmed, supported, and appeared on scientific programming on mainstream UK outlets such as the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.
Dr Sylvia Shaw
Sylvia Shaw is a Reader in English Language and Linguistics and is the doctoral coordinator for the School of Humanities. She gained her PhD from the University of London in 2002, and she has previously worked at Middlesex University and as a lexicographer for Longman dictionaries.
As a Sociolinguist, she researches public speaking in politics and her work has included research projects in the House of Commons and an ESRC funded project investigating gender, language and participation in the devolved political institutions of the UK. She has also published a monograph entitled Women, Language and Politics for Cambridge University Press (2020).