In a global world where communication plays a more and more important role, graduate students are asked to engage in innovative means of disseminating their research. Yet, they receive little to no training or coaching about these critical, translational, and career-defining skills. The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) is an annual academic competition where graduate students present their research to a non-specialist audience in three minutes. It is an excellent opportunity for students to improve their communication skills and showcase their research as it requires them to develop a clear, concise, and relevant short story about their work. This virtual presentation will discuss the 3MT experience at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto. More specifically, we will discuss the content and strategies needed by graduate students to develop a meaningful and relatable story of their research and effectively communicate their science. We will also share how we provide constructively formative feedback from peers and faculty to support the development of their future 3MT presentations. Students are coached individually on how to develop their presentation, research-based storytelling, and stage presence skills. Over the past few years, we have promoted the 3MT for our graduate students with impressive uptake and results. Graduate students are becoming increasingly aware of their own brand, that of their lab and university. Engaging with the general public and relevant stakeholders, locally and globally, is a skill that all graduate students will need to develop as they progress through their careers. The 3MT coaching will equip them with the necessary skills and experience to approach this task and prepare them for future careers.

Speakers

Laura Dempster BScD, MSc, Ph.D.

Dr. Dempster is a Professor at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto. She holds the inaugural Kamienski Professorship in Dental Education Research, is a Cross-Appointed Researcher at the Wilson Centre for Research in Education, University of Toronto and an Affiliated Scientist at the Centre for Ambulatory Care Education (CACE), Women’s College Hospital. Her academic teaching responsibilities include Behavioural Science and Communication Skills in the undergraduate dental curriculum, and Introduction to Research Methods & Dissemination and Graduate Research Dissemination Seminars to graduate dental specialty and biomedical students. Laura leads the Education Research theme at Dentistry where her program of research uses qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the clinician/patient relationship, assessment of communication skills, and appraisal of attributes important to a dental professional. Dr Dempster is Chair of the Faculty Council and the Faculty Development Committee at Dentistry and Past President of the Association of Canadian Faculties of Dentistry (ACFD) and the International Association of Dental Research (IADR) Education Research Group.

Dr. Laurent Bozec is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Dentistry. As Biophysicist, he is also the of the Matrix Functionalization & Phenotyping Laboratory (MFP-Lab or Bozec-lab), which aims to explore the relationship between collagen's structural and biomechanical properties at the nanoscale in health and diseases. Before joining the University of Toronto in 2018, he was Vice-Dean of Research at the Eastman Dental Institute at University College London (UK). There, he oversaw the development of new graduate research programs tailored to overseas students and created a Faculty-level Doctoral Centre, the Eastman Center for Postgraduate Research, encompassing over 80 concurrent Ph.D. students. Since joining the University of Toronto, he developed a graduate program to help new graduate students approach their first advisory committee in optimum conditions. In addition, Dr. Bozec is passionate about research dissemination and coaches all Faculty Graduate students on improving their communication skills. As part of this effort, he introduced a Three minutes thesis coaching program to support competitors across several faculties at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Bozec obtained his Ph.D. in 2003 (Lancaster University UK) and has supervised 37 Doctorates (25 Ph.Ds. and 12 Professional Doctorate), 55 Master, and 13 undergraduate students across the UK and Canada.

Please note: as per the speakers' request, this event will not be recorded. Thank you for your understanding!