October 22, 2024 Lauren Milam won first place in the annual Three Minute Thesis competition presented by ßŮÁ¨´«Ă˝ (UAH) Graduate School on Oct. 14, 2024. The College of Nursing Ph.D. candidate, who is also a clinical instructor in nursing at UAH, discussed “Voices That Matter: Ensuring Safe Motherhood for All.” Michael Mercier | UAH Lauren Milam, a Ph.D. candidate in the College of Nursing at ßŮÁ¨´«Ă˝ (UAH), won first place in the annual (3MT) competition presented by the UAH Graduate School on Oct. 14. Her presentation, “Voices That Matter: Ensuring Safe Motherhood for All,” also received the People’s Choice award. UAH is a part of The University of Alabama System. “My presentation is about ensuring pregnant and postpartum women feel heard and feel their concerns are being validated by health care professionals,” said Milam, a clinical instructor in the UAH College of Nursing. She holds an M.S. in nursing from the University of North Alabama and a B.S. in nursing from Belmont University. Pavani Suresh presents “Decoding Nature’s Palette: Machine Learning for Hyperspectral Image Segmentation” at Three Minute Thesis on Oct. 14, 2024. She won second place. Michael Mercier | UAH “I participated in the Three Minute Thesis competition mainly because I wanted to share my proposed research and to shed light on the issue of maternal mortality in the U.S., particularly among Black women. I also wanted to share how increasing person-centered care and instilling empowerment could potentially alleviate this problem.” Milam’s presentation earned the top prize of $250 plus $100 for People’s Choice. She also won an all-expenses-paid opportunity to represent UAH at the regional 3MT Competition at the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools’ annual meeting, March 19-21, 2025, in Dallas. Milam said she appreciated the communications experience 3MT provided. “It allowed me to gain confidence in sharing my proposed research and also helped me formulate the explanation of it in simple terms so everyone can understand.” The second-place winner in the UAH competition was Pavani Suresh, who is pursuing an M.S. in computer science. Her presentation, “Decoding Nature’s Palette: Machine Learning for Hyperspectral Image Segmentation,” won a $200 prize. Eirian Waldron, M.A. in history, took third place and a prize of $100 for “Who Has the Right Stuff? Iconography of the American Astronauts.” Waldron is a staff assistant in the UAH Academic Affairs office. Eirian Waldron presents “Who Has the Right Stuff? Iconography of the American Astronauts,” the third-place winner of Three Minute Thesis on Oct. 14, 2024. Michael Mercier | UAH Also competing in the 2024 3MT were Dipika Chandra, Ph.D. in physics, “Cosmic Ripples: The Secret Life of Sloshing Cold Fronts in Merging Galaxy Clusters,” and Alexis Delgado, M.S. in biology, “Creating a L-Tryptophan Biosensor.” Judging the competition were Chelsea Aaron, WAFF-TV, Channel 48, meteorologist; Chris Pinto, UAH director of undergraduate admissions, and Dr. Andrea Word, UAH clinical assistant professor of curriculum and instruction and project director of Project DIAL. Participants in 3MT 2024 came from the UAH College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; College of Nursing, and College of Science. The 3MT program was developed by The University of Queensland in Australia. It challenges students to effectively explain their research and its significance in three minutes using language appropriate to a non-specialist audience. Learn More Graduate School College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences College of Nursing College of Science Contact Kristina Hendrix 256-824-6341 kristina.hendrix@uah.edu Julie Jansen 256-824-6926julie.jansen@uah.edu
