NEWS
NORMAN, OKLA. – Three graduate students at the University of Oklahoma have been named winners of the 2025 Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, an annual event challenging graduate students to present their research in just three minutes to a non-specialist audience.
First Place: Zainab Iyiola, a student from the Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, presented a project titled “A Smart Approach to Safe Hydrogen Transport in Natural Gas Pipelines.” In the project, she introduced a model and assessment software designed to evaluate the safety of transporting hydrogen through converted gas pipelines. As the winner of the competition, she represents OU at the regional 3MT competition during the 81st Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools Annual Meeting in Indianapolis in April.
Runner-Up: Ashley Hawk, School of Music in the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Arts, delivered a presentation titled “Marches by Women,” which highlighted her research in compiling a catalog of over 100 marches written and arranged by women.
People’s Choice Award: Rana Ajeeb, Peggy and Charles Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering in the Gallogly College of Engineering, showcased a project titled “From Chaos to Precision: Delivering Drugs Safely and Effectively Where They Are Needed,” which detailed her work developing nanoparticles for precision drug delivery in the human body.
Developed by the University of Queensland in 2008, the competition has since expanded to more than 900 universities worldwide. This was the ninth year in which the Graduate College at OU has hosted its own 3MT event.
To learn more about the competition, visit https://www.ou.edu/gradcollege/student-life/awards-and-competitions.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. For more information about the university, visit www.ou.edu.
In a rare achievement for an undergraduate student, Colby Higdon, a geology major on the paleontology track with the University of Oklahoma has published original paleontological research conducted at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History that reveals new insights into whether competition between ancient animals was responsible for their extinction.
Newly published research in Science Advances, led by Jessica Cerezo-Román, at the University of Oklahoma, documents the oldest known cremation in Africa and provides some of the earliest evidence for intentional cremation using a pyre in the world.
Three University of Oklahoma graduate students have been named winners of the 2025 Three Minute Thesis competition, which challenges participants to explain their research in three minutes to a non-specialist audience.
