 Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the finals of this year's Carnegie Mellon University three-minute thesis competition. I'm Keith Webster. I'm the Helen and Henry Posner junior dean of university libraries and your host this evening. We're thrilled to be back for our eighth year hosting this event. We continue to attract an impressive array of doctoral students willing to share their research in an informative and entertaining manner. It's wonderful to see so many of you with us in Kresge Auditorium in the College of Fine Arts today. A special welcome to a group of students visiting from our Qatar campus who are here for their spring break. And in addition, we are live streaming the competition courtesy of the CMU Alumni Association. The three-minute thesis competition was developed by my former university, the University of Queensland in Australia, and has grown from what in 2008 was expected to be an interesting one-off local event into an international competition held in universities around the world. The premise of the three-minute thesis is simple. Students have three minutes to present a compelling aeration on their thesis and its significance. It's not an exercise in trivializing or dumbing down their research, but challenges students to consolidate their ideas and discoveries so they can be presented concisely to a non-specialist audience. In bringing the three-empty challenge to Carnegie Mellon, I had no idea of the likely response. Over eight years, we've had more than 530 participants from across the university and judges representing faculty and staff from colleges, schools, and the university libraries. University leaders, alumni, and representatives of the research student body have also represented their areas and participated enthusiastically, and I'm grateful for everyone's contribution to 3MT. 41 students participated in this year's preliminary rounds from all seven of the university's colleges, making this truly a campus-wide event. We have five of the colleges represented in tonight's finals. I'm pleased to introduce our judges for this evening. Jim Garrett, Provost and Chief Academic Officer, Anne Malloy, a trustee and member of the University Library's Dean's Advocacy Council, Amy Burkart, Teaching Professor and Vice Provost for Education, Theresa Trumbetta, and Vice President for Alumni and Constituent Engagement, and Jamie Leitch, a PhD candidate in the Department of History. Please welcome our judges and thank them. The rules of the competition are straightforward. Speakers are limited very firmly to a maximum of three minutes, and the competition rules require the disqualification of anyone who continues beyond that time. If they choose, and I think they all have chosen, speakers will be able to view a countdown timer during the presentation, and my faculty colleague, Ryan Splendid, will be operating on the timer and blowing a whistle or something when the time is at its end. Speakers are permitted to display a single static slide, but may not use any other media or props. Our judges will consider three broad criteria in arriving at their decision. These are comprehension, engagement and communication. In just a moment, I will introduce each speaker in turn and invite them to deliver their presentation. Once all of the speakers have taken their turn, the judges will retire to agree on today's winners. Our judging panel will select three winners who will receive awards as shown on the screen, in addition to the prizes they already won in the preliminary rounds. In addition, our in-person audience will have the opportunity to vote for the People's Choice Award. At the end of the presentations, we will collect your ballot paper that's printed on the back of your programme. Please vote for the candidate of your choice, and I'm told that we've taken the hack-proof, paper-based approach. We are also happy once again to partner with the CMU Alumni Association to award the Alumni Choice Award. This $500 prize will be awarded to the participant who receives the most votes from CMU Alumni watching the live stream on the Alumni Association's website after the conclusion of the last presenter's presentation. The winner of the Alumni Choice Award will be announced at the end of this evening's event, along with the other award winners. Before introducing our first presenter, I'd like to thank the many people who have made this event possible. Our finalists arrived here from Eight Heats. I mentioned already 41 students representing all of the colleges participated. Each Heat, like today's event, had a panel of judges, and I'm grateful to all who supported the Heats. I also acknowledge the phenomenal work of my colleagues in the University Libraries, notably Ryan Splenda, Sarah Young, Jimmy McKee, Sonja Wellington, Morgan Wolbert, Shannon Riff, Heidi Wooden-Bartlett, Sarah Bender, and Shannon Baldridge. Thank you all for your support.