UT at Chattanooga holds two pitch competitions on the same day
The two were the Graduate Student Three Minute Thesis (3MT) and the Undergraduate Research Elevator Pitch competition.
Although pursuing a doctoral degree in computational science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), Maheshi Walawwe did something unexpected when she stepped on stage to present her research—she left the equations out.
“I know that many people don’t like the equations and algorithms,” said Walawwe, a first-year student who came to UTC from Kandy, Sri Lanka. “But I wanted to give that idea in a different way so that people can understand how we can use mathematics in society and for the future. I arranged my presentation without any equations. I wanted to talk about basic things with simple English—how we can interact with math and our world.”
Walawwe’s approach helped her earn first place in the Graduate Student Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition held last week. That same afternoon, undergraduate students took the stage for the Research Elevator Pitch competition.
The competitions, held in collaboration between the UTC Graduate School and the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavor (URaCE), gave students from across disciplines a chance to share their work in concise presentations before a panel of UTC faculty, staff, and Chattanooga professionals. Prizes ranged from $250 to $750.
In the undergraduate competition, participants had two minutes and only two slides each.
Noah Wyatt took first place for “A Low-Cost Portable Cosmic Ray Detector for Exploration and Education.”
“We have a very large detector that was very hard to carry around,” said Wyatt, a junior physics major from Chattanooga. “We wanted some money to build some handheld, very portable detectors that we could take into the caves and do some research. We also want to take other organizations on campus or just people who are interested, and do demonstrations—and teach them about physics and geology.”
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