Previous Winners

Our thanks to the hundreds of students who have participated in our training sessions, heats and grand finales down through the years. 

We appreciate everyone who shared the story of their research.

See below the list of winners since Threesis began. 

The winner and audience choice recipient of Threesis 2022 was anatomy student Victoria Ward from the College of Medicine with her talk titled “Heart Attacks and Hydrogel Heroes”. Supported by the O’ Duffy Lab, Victoria’s research investigates the mechanical properties of hyaluronic acid hydrogels and how they can reinforce and regenerate damaged heart tissue following myocardial infarction or in simple terms, heart attacks. Her work is funded by Science Foundation Ireland and the AMBER Centre Project.

Second place went to Italian PhD student Rosy Polisicchio, who presented "Tumours play hide and seek; how do we win?”. Supported by the Hardiman Scholarship from the School of Natural Sciences, Rosy’s research focuses on efficiently creating bright and luminescent compounds that can selectively accumulate in cancerous cells. Rosy is funded by the Irish Research Council.

In third place was occupational therapy student, Mai Alharthy from the College of Nursing and Midwifery with her talk “Assessing Everyday Memory in Arabic Populations with Brain Injuries". Mai’s research looks at the cultural adaptation of an everyday English memory assessment tool for brain injuries for its use within the Arabic-speaking population.

The winner of Threesis 2019 as well as securing the Audience Winner prize was Sam Afoullouss with his bite-sized talk ‘Ireland’s Deep Sea Pharmacy’.

Sam is a PhD candidate in the School of Chemistry and School of Natural Science, working together with both the Ryan Institute and Marine Institute. Sam’s research focuses on discovering new medicines derived from marine organisms. In particular, he studies sponges and corals from the Irish Deep-Sea, located off the west coast of Ireland, at a depth of 2 km. His research is funded by Science Foundation Ireland.

In second place was Ríona Walsh, with her talk ‘Into the Woods: Can Woodland Creatures Protect us from Lyme Disease?’ 

Ríona is a PhD candidate in the School of Natural Sciences. Her research is transdisciplinary research on Lyme disease in Ireland, investigating the ecology, epidemiology, and awareness of this disease. Her work is funded by the School of Natural Sciences scholarship.

Securing third place from the judges was Tianming Yao with his talk ‘Shaking off Romantic Shackles’.

Tianming is PhD student in the School of Political Science and Sociology. His research topic is the media construction of sexuality. His research investigates how our bodies and emotions have been regulated and controlled by social structure, and explores the underlying power transition behind the changing media construction of sexuality.

Our Threesis 2018 winner was James Blackwell, with his talk "Finding brain tumours using ultrasound"

James went on to represent University of Galway in Famelab in 2019.

The 2018 competition consisted of quick-fire presentations, with University of Galway researchers presenting three slides, in three minutes, to three judges. The competitors had come through a series of heats already held on campus, to take on the final challenge at a public event in the O'Donoghue Theatre.

Watch our highlights video and read more about the grand finale here.

Threesis 16

In 2016, Threesis was won by Bárbara Oliveira, for her presentation on using microwave breast imaging to enable more accessible and affordable cancer screening.

Bárbara went on to become a runner-up Thesis-in-3, and a finalist in ResearchFest 2017.

The 2016 competition consisted of quick-fire presentations, with University of Galway researchers presenting three slides, in three minutes, to three judges. The competitors had come through a series of heats already held on campus, to take on the final challenge at a public event in An Taibhdhearc.

Watch our recap video here and read about the 2016 competition here.

The Threesis 2015 competition winner was Paul Mannion who discussed the ‘GEEC 2.0 - Galway Energy Efficient Car Design and Development’ project which was in construction phase at the time. The project's aim was to improve fuel efficiency through improved aerodynamic design and it has since gone on to achieve great results.

For Threesis 14, a first-year biotechnology student, Edel Browne, who took first prize at University of Galway’s third annual Threesis Competition. Edel’s presentation was on ‘Free Feet’, a simple and innovative use of laser technology that has revolutionised potential treatment methods for Freezing of Gait in people with Parkinson’s disease.

Threesis in 2013 was won by James Curry, a PhD student at the Moore Institute, whose thesis focuses on the visual imagery of the early 20th century.

James talked about how during the 1913 Lockout, the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) newspaper the Irish Worker employed the cartoon skills of Ernest Kavanagh, a union clerk and friend of Jim Larkin’s, to have a regular dig at policemen, businessmen and the notorious William Martin Murphy.

Threesis 12 first prize was awarded to Dr. Ronán Hennessy of the Ryan Institute for his talk “Making Time for Old Lines”, based on his work to create an on-line Google Earth based tool that allows the user to fly through an animated, historical record of the creation, and destruction, of Ireland’s Railways.