 Welcome, everyone. Let us start by acknowledging and celebrating the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet tonight and pay our respects to the elders of the Nunawal people past, present, and emerging. It's great to see so many people come out from both the university and our community to celebrate research in its purest form, being able to see the emerging research leaders at this great university come out and tell you about how they are understanding the world we live in in three minutes. It is a challenge which I can tell you is as hard as anything you can do to take whether it be the universe, a cell, or sociology and condense it into a three-minute description of world-leading research. It is something that ANU is doing like no other university. There is no other university that has this many people coming out and being part of this great experience. It is something that I see as being things that all of us need to learn at this university. When you're out trying to pitch for several million dollars for the Grand Challenges scheme, you've got to do a three-minute pitch. I'm trying to get us, when we're out talking about what the university is doing to impact in the world, to do a three-minute pitch. And we can learn from our students as we always do. Last year, I took the challenge, quite foolishly, to condense my thesis into three minutes. And I did a very good job. I unfortunately took four minutes. So I was disqualified. Trying to only use one PowerPoint slide, that's hard, because I'm someone who likes to use hundreds of PowerPoint slide, and they sort of help me along. No, you're not going to be blinded with PowerPoint tonight, just a single slide. So I wish the 12 contestants not just the best of luck. I thank them for taking the time and energy to tell us about what they are dedicating several years of their life to do to help advance humanity. So without further ado, I would like to introduce our masters of ceremonies, also known as the thesis whisperer, Professor Inger Mubern. Now, Inger, before I hand over the mic, you have recently put out a book called How to Be an Academic. This was great. It landed on my desk, but she did not sign it. So I'm going to take the opportunity to have you autograph my book. And I commend the book to all of you, and I'm sure Inger would be happy to autograph it for you tonight as well. Excellent. And Inger, I'm going to be out being a judge tonight. So anyway, thank you so much. It's so great, again, to see such a full house on such a cold Canberra night. So thank you for coming out for the three-minute thesis. My team and I, Victoria and Lily, we're small, but we work hard all year on the 3MT, amongst the many other things we do, because we love it. And we're very excited, as usual, about the event tonight. It's the fifth year that I've run the event at ANU, and I'm really happy about the way that Canberra has taken it to its nerdy heart to come out and watch our three-minute thesis competitors. So just a little bit of background, the three-minute thesis research communication competition was developed by the University of Queensland in 2008. It's now an international competition, held in at least 170 universities and 18 countries worldwide. So all our finalists have put in an incredible effort to get on the stage tonight. They've won places at their local school and college heats, where the standard was very high. And this year's trans-Tasman final, which is the next step for tonight's winning finalist, is held at the end of the month at the University of Queensland. Now, last year some of you would have watched our 3MT winner, Joshua Tutan. He represented us at the Asia Pacific Finals and he won the crown. Yes, go A&U. Team. So we have very high hopes to our finalists this year to repeat the effort, to dominate again, but no pressure. Okay. Now, before we get the show rolling, can I ask you a very, very important thing? Please put your phone on silent. You can just imagine how embarrassing it would be if yours was the one to ring or beep just at that vital moment, because our competitors have a very tight script and it's easy for them to be distracted. We want you to keep them on though. Please don't turn them off. You can tweet and the hashtags for the events will be on the screen shortly. Okay. Now, the 3MT thesis challenges our candidates to present a compelling aeration on their thesis and its significance to a non-specialist audience. That's 80,000 words in three minutes. And so actually this competition is an amazing test of how well you know your research topic. Now, all our PhD candidates here at ANU are champion brain athletes. They do the academic equivalent of getting up on cold, dark Canberra mornings at five AM to do 200 laps of the pool or just run for 10 miles. And the 3MT is a very rare opportunity for us to see inside their world. And at ANU, we take this competition very seriously because we want to share the incredible work that all our researchers are doing here. And what you'll see tonight is truly the tip of the iceberg. The research effort is carried out by so many people on campus who contribute directly and indirectly to the success of this fine university that I'm proud to work at. But although this is a competition tonight, we don't like to make it the academic hunger games. Me and my team are sort of like performance coaches who train our participants to a fine level of standard. But our past participants report the surprising thing to them from the experiences, how much fun they had and how many friends they made. And of course getting access to the jobs and opportunities that tend to follow more than they'd ever imagined. So if you're sitting in the audience tonight and you're a PhD student thinking, hmm, could I do that? Could I get up on the stage? Come join us. We can get you there and we'll support you all the way. Okay, the rules of course are extremely simple. Just three minutes to tell us what they are researching, how they are doing it, and importantly, why it matters. Now I'd like to invite my colleague Hannah to the stage. She has one very important job today, Hannah. Thank you, Hannah. We don't wanna hear that sound again tonight because it means someone's disqualified. So it's real, it's serious. And for a serious competition, we have a very serious, heavyweight judging panel tonight. You've already met our Vice Chancellor, Brian Schmidt, of course, joint winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. And he is joined by our Chief Minister for the ACT, who is also obviously a very busy man. Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Tourism and Major Events. Welcome, Andrew Barr. Thank you for joining us tonight. I'd like to thank Janelle Wiseman from UN Women, Janelle is the Executive Director of the UN Women National Committee in Australia and does a lot of excellent work in this community and far beyond. And finally, Shane Drumgold, who is the Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions in the ACT. We could have put him on triangle duty, but we thought we'd better put him on judging panel instead. So thank you. We're very grateful to have you. Usually we have a media person on the judging panel, but this year, Stephanie Peatling had to pull out at last minute. Apparently it's very busy at Parliament House tonight. But the judges aren't going to be the only ones casting votes. You will also have a chance to vote, as usual, for the People's Choice Prize, supplied kindly by PASA, our Postgraduate and Research Students Association. You'll be given a program and when the time is right, we'll show you a slide where you can text the code or go online to cast your vote. I'm told we have thousands of people already joining us online via the ANU Facebook page. Hello to you. You'll also have a chance to vote. You'll see the codes on the screen when the poll opens and thanks for being with us. So when you cast your vote, we'd like you to think about a couple of things. Did the presentation help you understand the research? Was the thesis topic and its significance communicated in a language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience? That's all of us. Did the aeration make you want to know more? Did the speaker have sufficient stage presence? Eye contact, vocal range, maintain a steady pace and have a confident stance. It's a lot to think about, isn't it? It's actually very hard to judge, especially when you couldn't put a micro nanoparticle between these candidates, believe me. I like to think about it as the dinner party test. So I would vote for the person who you just want to tell everyone about. Next barbecue, next event. Hey, I learned something. And that really means that it's got your attention and that's what this competition is about. Now, of course, we're trusting you all not to share the codes outside. When the poll opens, we want it to be as fair as possible. Only people who've actually watched all the performances can vote because our candidates have worked just so hard and they're competing for actually some very good prizes tonight. So the winner will get a $4,000 research support grant and the opportunity to represent ANU in the Asia-Pacific finals in Brisbane on the 29th of September. And we'd like you to win that, so thank you. The runner-up will get a $500 research support grant. The People's Choice Prize that you'll be voting for is another $500 research support grant. And a special prize, which we've chosen specially for the key academic supporter as nominated by the ANU finalist will be given out. And a $250 research grant will go to all remaining finalists and thanks so much to PASA for sponsoring the prizes this year. The two hashtags we're using tonight on social media are at the bottom of the slide, ANU3MT and ANUHDR. And any other hashtag you like for that matter. Last couple of weeks, we've been running a course on social media strategies for researchers. And I'd like to thank our participants there, the ones with the glowing screens down there in the bottom corner. They're live tweeting and running all the ANU social media presence tonight. Thank you, colleagues. Appreciate your work. Last year, we were number one in the country. We beat Pauline Hansen's maiden speech to parliament, personally. Very good. And if she's in a burka this time, we can beat her again, I'm sure. Okay, it's time for the show.