Stanford
Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education

2026 3MT Competition

2026

Watch the full recording of Stanford University's 2026 Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, where graduate students from across disciplines take on the challenge of presenting their cutting-edge research in just three minutes.

Watch 2026 3MT Competition

2026 Finalists

Ibukun Ajifolokun
No Antigen Left Behind: How Injectable Hydrogels Improve Combination Vaccine Delivery

Anuj Amin
Binding Demons, Blurring Boundaries: Incantation Bowls and Everyday Religion

Colette Benko
Cellfies: Understanding How Cells Communicate with the Immune System

Orisa Coombs
Money Down the Toilet: Recovering Valuable Fertilizer from Urine

David Dumas
Plastics As They Should Be

Ziv Lautman
Dr. Smartwatch: What Your Wearable Knows Can Save Your Life

AJ Phillips
Teaching Neural Implants to Speak the Brain's Language

Kate Reinmuth
Oh, the Places You May Not Go: Understanding Promotion Gaps

Tom Rutter
Mapping Social Networks at Scale

Cady van Assendelft
Listening to the universe: searching for dark matter using quantum sensors

 

2026 Judges

Stacey Bent 
Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Science and Engineering
Former Vice Provost for Graduate Education

Lloyd Minor
Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the School of Medicine
Vice President for Medical Affairs

Condoleezza Rice
Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution
66th U.S. Secretary of State

Blakey Vermeule
Senior Associate Dean for Humanities and Arts
Albert Guérard Professor in Literature

Howard Wolf
Vice President for Alumni Affairs
President of the Stanford Alumni Association

News

Highlights from Stanford’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition, where 10 PhD finalists transform years of research into engaging, easy-to-understand talks—using just one slide and three minutes.