A PhD Student from Tallinn University Wins a Special Award in the English-Language "Science in 3 Minutes" Competition
BFM PhD student Larissa Barbosa Curi received a special prize from Novaator for her article in the competition. Peadar Callaghan, a PhD student from the School of Digital Technologies at Tallinn University, also participated in the competition.

The final gala of the English-language competition "Science in 3 Minutes", aimed at international PhD students studying at Estonian universities, took place on October 18 at the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Five laureates and three Novaator favourites were selected during the competition.
Larissa Barbosa Curi shared her thoughts on the competition: "This was an interesting experience in many ways. I truly appreciated the organization and support from the Estonian Academy of Sciences and I had a great time meeting researchers from other fields. The process of writing a popular science article is very different from what academics are used to and for that we received plenty of guidance and valuable feedback from Jaan-Juhan Oidermaa. Both the 3-minute presentation and the article are opportunities to think about the core of the research and how it can contribute to the field and beyond. I'm glad I got to share my ideas with people outside TLU and to have received positive and encouraging feedback from fellow researchers."
The competition laureates are:
- Francis Gracy Arockiaraj with the talk "Seeing through Fog, Mist and Skin Tissues" (University of Tartu, India),
- Baiba Brumele with the talk "TRMT112 – the mysterious link between different diseases" (University of Tartu, Latvia),
- Mehruba Shabaab Haque with the talk "Redefining Beauty for Young Girls in the Age of Social Media" (Estonian Business School, Bangladesh),
- Sharib Khan with the talk "If not plastics, then what?" (Estonian University of Life Sciences, India),
- Lucía Mariel Arana Peña with the talk "Caring through quality: Enhancing Mammography from afar" (Tallinn University of Technology, Guatemala).
Novaator's favourites were:
- Larissa Barbosa Curi with the article "Horror film viewers might actually want to listen to stories" (Tallinn University, BFM, Brazil),
- Vittoria Ecclesia with the article "A 13-Keyed Clarinet May Transform Classical Music Practice" (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Italy),
- Sajeesh Vadakkedath Gopi with the article "Estonia’s Cutting-Edge Solar Cells Aim to Tackle Growing Forest Fire Threats" (Tallinn University of Technology, India).
A total of 19 international PhD students from seven Estonian universities made it to the finals. The finalists were tasked with summarizing their years of research in three minutes in a way that would be engaging and understandable to all listeners, regardless of their background or prior knowledge.
The jury included Tarmo Soomere, George P. Kent (U.S. Ambassador to Estonia), Kristjan Järve (Board Member of the Inclusive Financial Technology Foundation), Kerli Gutman-Normak (Secretary-General of the Estonian National Commission for UNESCO), Kaidi Ruusalepp (Entrepreneur and Member of the Digital Council of the President of Estonia), Annika Uudelepp (Consultant and Chair of the Board of the cooperative Tuleva), and Joosep Värk (Journalist at Estonian Public Broadcasting).
The finals were preceded by internal university competitions and training sessions organized by the Estonian Academy of Sciences to refine participants' public speaking and writing skills. Each finalist also wrote a popular science article on their research, which either has been or will soon be published on the Research in Estonia website.
You can meet all the finalists here, and the gala's live stream is available for replay on the Academy’s YouTube channel. Photos of the final, taken by Reti Kokk, can be found here.