On Saturday, May 3, the 2025 Three Minute Thesis competition took place in the Kirner-Johnson Bradford Auditorium, where seniors were challenged to present summaries of their projects in three minutes or less, even though a 20,000 word thesis can take up to two hours to present. Their summaries were tailored to a general audience, and the judging panel consisted of community members from Clinton and Utica. The judges evaluated how effectively students engaged with the audience and how strongly their presentation supported their arguments.
Participants had the chance to win cash prizes, with $1000 for first place, $750 for second place, $500 for third place, and $250 for the People’s Choice Award. The People’s Choice Award was given to the individual whose presentation received the most votes from in-person attendees.
The Three Minute Thesis competition was created by The University of Queensland. According to their website, the “Three Minute Thesis celebrates the exciting research conducted by Ph.D. students” and “cultivates students’ academic, presentation, and research communication skills. The competition supports their capacity to effectively explain their research in three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience.”
Anna Yankee ’25 won first place for her environmental studies thesis, Scaling Sustainability: Collaborative Approaches and Multidimensional Scopes of Responsibility at Starbucks and Forno Brisa. She opened her presentation by asking, “What does sustainability look like? For some, it’s a tropical rainforest. For others, a reusable coffee cup. For former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, it’s business.”
Yankee engaged the audience in a brief interactive exercise, asking them to imagine two businesses, one with 38,000 locations worldwide and another with just five locations in a single city. She then asked which seemed more sustainable. Most audience members chose the smaller business, a response she noted aligns with common assumptions in the social sciences.
Yankee then challenged this assumption, questioning whether smaller businesses are actually more ethical and environmentally responsible. Through case studies of Starbucks and Forno Brisa, a café based in Bologna, Yankee explored how each business approaches sustainability.
Her findings revealed that both businesses prioritize sustainability, but with differing strategies. For example, she stated that Starbucks tends to treat environmental, social and economic goals as separate categories, while Forno Brisa integrates them.
Yankee concluded her presentation by emphasizing that sustainability goes beyond simple black and white distinctions. “It’s complex, collective and constantly evolving,” she said.
Jennie Weisbrot ’25 won second place for her economics thesis, Pharma Takes a Dive: Comparing Patent Cliffs of Biologics and Small Molecules. Weisbrot began her presentation by asking the audience if they prefer taking Advil or ibuprofen. She explained that Advil and ibuprofen are the same anti-inflammatory drug, except Advil is the brand name, while ibuprofen is the generic name that any manufacturer can use.
Weisbrot asserted that Advil is an example of a small molecule drug, which is chemically constructed and easy to copy once its patent expires, making it a simple “copy and paste operation.” Weisbrot contrasted Advil with Humira, another anti-inflammatory drug, as an example of a biologic, which is made from living cells. She explained that since biologics don’t have to reveal their exact cell line in patents, companies can’t create an exact replica of the product.
Weisbrot argued that when a patent expires and generics enter the market, pharmaceutical companies often face a “patent cliff,” a sharp drop in revenue due to competition. She went on to introduce her research question, “does the patent cliff for biologics vary from the one for small molecules?”

She hypothesized that the loss of sales for biologics is smaller compared to small molecules because biosimilars are harder to produce, leading to less competition and higher prices.
Weisbrot summarized the method of her thesis as collecting sales data for both biologics and small molecule drugs, then running statistical analyses to compare their revenue losses. She found evidence supporting her hypothesis that biologics experienced smaller drops in sales than small molecules. She indicated that “consumers are not leaving biologics for a cheaper alternative that may not even be there.”
Weisbrot concluded by saying, “I’m truly sorry if this gives you a headache, but you could always take some ibuprofen.”
The third-place winner was Abigail Lowder ’25 for her neuroscience thesis, Modeling Glioblastoma Angiogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster Larvae. She began by asking, “What would you do if I told you that you only had 15 months left to live? That’s the reality for anyone diagnosed with Glioblastoma brain cancer,” a disease her own father faced. She emphasized the urgent need for more research to find a cure.
Lowder explained that Glioblastoma begins with a mutation in the brain that causes a tumor to grow and hijack nearby blood vessels. While the concept may sound simple, she pointed out we can’t ethically give humans brain tumors, so we must rely on models to study the disease. Lowder described a procedure using two genetically modified fruit fly lines: one that targets glial cells and another that introduces a cancer-causing mutation. She explained that when bred together, their offspring develop brain tumors.
Lowder described her project’s method, which compared healthy and cancerous fly brains. She found significant differences between the two groups, suggesting that her study was a first step in establishing a consistent model for studying Glioblastoma progression in flies.
Lowder concluded by expressing hope that her research will help make brain cancers less deadly so that she can “offer someone just a little bit more time with a loved one than [she] was offered with [her] dad.”
After the competition, the audience, excluding the judges, voted for the People’s Choice Award. Index cards were distributed for people to write their votes, which were then placed in a ballot box. While the results were close, the winner was clear.
Weisbrot received the People’s Choice Award. In addition to her economics thesis, she presented her biology thesis, Cloning Eyeless and Twin of Eyeless Enhancers. She began by acknowledging that while fruit flies might seem unappealing when they get into your fruit, they play a crucial role in science, particularly in studying human gene regulation: the process of turning genes on and off depending on the function needed. She explained that although gene regulation must be timed precisely, we still do not fully understand how it works, which is what her thesis aimed to explore.
Weisbrot focused specifically on eye development and a vision disorder called Aniridia. She hypothesized that three genetic enhancers play key roles in regulating eye development.
As part of her method, Weisbrot created a recombinant plasmid, a tool designed to indicate whether gene regulation is functioning correctly. She explained that future students will insert this plasmid into fruit flies to test whether it properly regulates the genes eyeless and twin of eyeless.
Weisbrot concluded her speech by declaring, “I please urge you to clean your fruit bowls, but maybe also acknowledge that the mighty fruit fly has an important contribution to biology.”
Hamilton is among the few undergraduate institutions in the U.S. that host the competition. The thesis competition is funded by the Ferguson Endowment.