Hoque, who studies health sciences in UM’s interdisciplinary health program on the Fort Garry campus, said: “I want to see what’s available and who does what. As a first-year student, I really don’t know what’s available.” 

The information village on Joe Doupe concourse.

The annual Graduate Studies Open House started with an information village where students visited booths, followed by presentations from 13 graduate programs in Theatre B at the Basic Medical Sciences building.  

Departments highlighted what makes them unique and the supports available, including financial assistance, research funding and professional development opportunities. 

Presenters also talked about what graduates’ careers can look like in the future, from working in academia and industry to non-profits and government.  

“When I came here today, I thought, ‘Whoa! There’s so much more than I imagined,’” said Hoque. “There are so many opportunities.” 

Why choose graduate studies? 

Dr. Samantha Pauls, assistant professor at the College of Pharmacy and Rady Faculty programming lead for graduate student professional development, spoke about why students should consider graduate studies – both the professional and research programs. 

The professional programs, which include master of physician assistant studies, master of public health, master of science in rehabilitation sciences, master of nursing and others, emphasize coursework and clinical training. 

Dr. Samantha Pauls addresses event participants in Theatre B at the Basic Medical Sciences building.

“Health care is a team sport. MDs and nurses just can’t do all of the health care that’s needed for our communities and society,” said Pauls. 

“These professional programs – that are master’s programs – really will turn you into competent and compassionate members of the health-care team as a whole.” 

The research programs in departments such as medical microbiology and infectious diseases and human anatomy and cell science typically require a thesis and involve significant research work.  

Pauls said undergraduate studies focus on “what we already know.” Graduate research asks, “What don’t we know?” and challenges students to add new knowledge that could lead to better health treatments and policies.  

Building on a passion for research 

Hans Sanchez, a soon-to-graduate student in microbiology on the Fort Garry campus, is considering graduate studies. His interest lies in improving human health through research. 

He has research experience through a co-op term in associate professor Dr. Ayesha Saleem’s lab at the Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry. 

Sanchez attended the open house to learn about what different departments and colleges provide to their graduate students. 

“I’m here to figure out which grad program will best support my research interests,” he said.  

“What classes can we take? Do we have a stipend? I love presenting, so I’m finding out what opportunities they have for grad students to present their work – whether it’s local or international. I want to be in a program that will support my academic goal.” 

Graduate programs offer interdisciplinary paths 

Both Sanchez and Hoque were excited to learn that graduate studies offer interdisciplinary opportunities. 

“Programs aren’t limited to their college’s name – pharmacy programs, for example, explore much more than pharmaceuticals,” said Sanchez. 

Hans Sanchez (left) and Raeesa Hoque (right) at the University of Manitoba’s Bannatyne campus.

Hoque, whose interest is in neuroscience and global health, said she appreciates the knowledge she gained at the event. 

“This is why the open house is so good – to network, to talk, to do hands-on activities,” she said. “After the presentations, it made me think maybe I’d want to do a joint program instead of focusing on just one department.” 

Sanchez shared some advice for students considering research. 

“Put yourself in uncomfortable situations and get your foot in the door,” he said. “Go to those open houses, talk to those professors. They’re there to help and guide you in achieving your career goals. And maybe one day, you’ll also be a leader in health care. It just takes one small but important step.” 

*** 

Learn more about graduate programs in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at  umanitoba.ca/health-sciences/programs-of-study 

Drawing from their own lived experience, Sebring brings firsthand insight to the challenges of chronic illness. Their research focuses on functional neurological disorder (FND) – a condition that causes multiple neurological symptoms without a clear medical cause. 

“I was appalled by my experiences as a patient trying to find a diagnosis and how difficult it was to get the care I needed for debilitating neurological symptoms,” they said. “At the same time, I was also fascinated by what I was learning about the brain and how these symptoms manifest.”  

As they learned more about FND, they were inspired to focus their research on supporting others with FND and involving the community in improving care. 

Sebring said no research currently exists on the experiences of people with FND in Canada. They hope their work will change that. 

They completed an undergraduate degree in women’s and gender studies at the University of Winnipeg before pursuing their master’s and PhD at UM. Sebring is a 2022 Vanier Scholar and 2025 Research Manitoba PhD studentship recipient.  

Sebring shared more about their journey in community health and how art became central to their research. 

“Lift the Weight or Deepen the Wound” by Vaishali Sharma

What challenges do people with FND face that make it different from other conditions? 

FND symptoms can range from cognitive issues – such as memory and concentration problems – to speech disorders, limb weakness and seizures. These conditions can be quite unpredictable, and health-care providers may know little about them.  

Patients often struggle to access care, frequently shuffled between specialists without clear direction. Some physicians refer patients to psychiatrists, who then send them back to neurologists. This referral pattern creates a cycle of confusion and stigma. 

They’re not considered high priority, even when FND affects their daily lives. Many are accused of faking their symptoms because test results show nothing abnormal.  

Can you tell us more about your research and how it can impact health care? 

I conduct qualitative research with people living with FND across Canada, using interviews, conversations and art-based methods. 

Participants first share their experiences with the health-care system through interviews. Then, they take part in a six- to eight-week workshop where they create art that reflects their stories. This approach gives us rich insights – often ones we wouldn’t have come across through interviews alone. 

My goal is to raise awareness in the medical community and ensure patients’ perspectives are reflected in research and health-care education. By centring their voices, we can create meaningful change that addresses their needs and concerns. 

Left, “It’s All in Your Head” by Bronwyn Berg; right, “Une connection à la fois” by Amélie M.

How has the College of Community and Global Health supported you in your learning? 

It’s been a great college to be in because we get a solid grounding in health research, our health system and all these different dimensions of what that research can look like. CCGH has been very open-minded since my study isn’t what typically comes to mind when people think of health research. 

I’ve also received mentorship, travel funding and other forms of support. Those resources have helped me pursue different professional opportunities, which has been exciting. 

What’s next? 

I recently launched a website featuring artwork created by research participants, where health-care providers and Canadians can learn from their experiences.  

My next project will explore what recovery looks like for people with FND, including the creation of visual timelines that map their journeys. I’m also envisioning an interprofessional health education initiative – training health professionals across disciplines to better support those living with FND. 

Through my continued commitment to this community, I hope to shed light on the realities of FND and help patients access the care they deserve. 

*** 

To learn more about Sebring’s research, visit: undoingdisorder.ca.

The UM biochemistry grad enjoyed the job, but it wasn’t fulfilling his interest in biomedical science. When he saw a posting for a master’s student to work in a UM lab that studies chronic lung diseases, he knew the time was right to return to school.

The research project he’d be undertaking focused on how maternal smoking during pregnancy increases a baby’s chance of developing asthma. Aguilar himself had asthma as a child.

“This project is just really close to my heart,” he says.

Many published studies have shown that exposure to cigarette smoke in the womb increases a person’s risk of asthma and other inflammatory lung diseases.

“What no one knows is how that actually happens,” says Aguilar, 28, who was born in the Philippines and immigrated to Manitoba in his teens.

“How does the mom’s smoking get relayed to the developing child? That’s the knowledge gap.”

Some scientists have assumed that the communication pathway must be the umbilical cord, Aguilar says. “My research is novel because no one has looked at the amniotic fluid – the liquid that surrounds the baby inside the womb.

“We know that the developing fetus, for proper lung development, breathes amniotic fluid in and out. But there’s not a lot of knowledge of the normal chemical messengers that are present in amniotic fluid.”

Aguilar’s supervisor was Dr. Christopher Pascoe, associate professor of physiology and pathophysiology in the Max Rady College of Medicine and researcher with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba.   

Aguilar received funding of $20,000 from Research Manitoba. He has completed his master’s degree and is now a first-year UM medical student. We spoke with him about his master’s project.

What was involved in the study, and what were your findings?

To recruit the pregnant participants for the study, we piggybacked on a placenta study at the University of Alberta. Our collaborators there obtained samples of amniotic fluid from 32 participants at the time of giving birth. The participants were asked whether they had smoked during pregnancy.  

Here in the lab, we tested the amniotic fluid for 99 different chemical messengers called cytokines, comparing the fluid from smokers and non-smokers. We found that the amniotic fluid from study participants who smoked contained a lot more cytokines that are associated with inflammation.

Since we can’t run tests on developing fetal lungs, we then exposed adult lung cells in the lab to the amniotic fluid to see if it affected their function. We measured the cells’ function by using an electric current.

We found that the amniotic fluid from participants who smoked actually increased the cells’ functioning in some ways. We think it’s because there are so many kinds of cytokines playing different roles in the fluid, and this needs more study.

The bottom line is, we have shown that amniotic fluid alters the function of lung cells. To my knowledge, we are the first in the world to demonstrate this. In both 2024 and 2025, I had the honour of presenting my research at the American Thoracic Society conference.

What made you decide to enrol in medical school?

A lot of my master’s courses were taught by clinician-scientists like Dr. Richard Keijzer (professor of surgery) and Dr. Shyamala Dakshinamurti (professor of pediatrics/child health and physiology). That came as the inspiration: I can do research and be a doctor as well.

I’m really interested in pediatric surgery. And long-term, I want to have my own lab. I want to have an intervention role in medicine, and also have a big research arm alongside that, and have both be complementary to each other.

What did you learn from your master’s studies that is helping you in medical school?

The problem-solving skill – being able to think through problems and solve them with the information you have, but also being able to look for information to solve your problems – that has helped me a lot.

Another thing you learn in grad school is resilience, because most of the time, your experiments will not work. Having that resilience to keep going is a big thing that I’m bringing to medical school.

This Q&A is part of a series on UM Today featuring Rady Faculty of Health Sciences graduate students. You can find more grad student profiles here: #Radygradstudents

Then, about five years ago, a cousin pursued genealogical research and verified the Métis identity of Bouchard’s mother’s family.

“It was a community that I should have been a part of, growing up,” says Bouchard, a 26-year-old graduate student. “At first, I felt a sense of loss and anger at my ancestors for hiding it.

“But as I learned more about the reasons why families hid their Métis ancestry, I shifted to understanding the system of colonialism and oppression. I’m ‘re-membering’ myself as part of the Métis community.”

Bouchard, now a card-carrying citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF), holds a bachelor’s degree in biology. He is pursuing his master of science at the College of Pharmacy. His supervisor, assistant professor Dr. Anna Chudyk, has expertise in engaging patients in health services research.

For his master’s research project, Bouchard is planning what he believes is the first study of the health-care experiences of Manitoban Métis people living with congenital heart disease. He’s partnering with the MMF to recruit participants, and he’ll use the Indigenous qualitative research method of traditional sharing circles to collect the data.

“We need distinct, culturally based Métis health research,” he says. “Collaboration is key. Métis patients will be involved from the design of the study to the data analysis.

“We’re planning to do one urban and one rural sharing circle. Métis Elders will be involved. We want to make sure we’re doing our research in a way that promotes Métis voices.”

People born with congenital heart disease – the term for various types of structural heart defects – are surviving much longer than they used to because of advances in pediatric care, Bouchard says.

Many now live long, full lives, but they still require specialized cardiac monitoring. For example, a patient might need a heart valve replacement every 20 years.

Because Indigenous people, including Métis citizens, face many barriers to equitable health care, they are probably less likely to receive appropriate continuity of care for congenital heart disease, Bouchard says.

Roughly 30 per cent of all patients with the disease receive no adult cardiac care after transitioning out of pediatric care, he says. Indigenous patients, who are already disadvantaged in the health system and may live far away from heart specialists, are even more at risk.

“A lot of times, Indigenous patients are blamed for not seeking followup care,” Bouchard adds.

The research study will give participants a safe place to share the positives and negatives of their health-care experiences. The sharing circles will be guided by questions such as, “What is one message you wish you could tell health-care workers?”

It’s essential to listen respectfully to people with lived experience, Bouchard says. “Having the patients in the sharing circle drive the conversation is the best way for us to become informed about what needs to change.

“You can’t just rely on Westernized methods of large data collection and numbers and stats. You have to get the stories of the patients.”

Bouchard hopes his findings will demonstrate the research value of sharing circles and help to inform health-care decisions about the supports and services that Métis patients need.

“If you’re going to make a policy change that’s going to affect how Indigenous people interact with the health-care system, those stakeholders have to be at the table the whole way through,” he says.

Bouchard hopes the next step in his journey will be admission to medical school. “What I would like to do, potentially, is to be a leader in Indigenous health as a Métis physician, and try to give back to this community.”

The Emerging Scholar Podcast features host and producer Dr. Jonathan McGavock, a professor of pediatrics and child health at the Max Rady College of Medicine, speaking with a variety of experts in the health sciences research field. The Podcast is produced and supported by UMFM with the help of co-producer Jared McKetiak.

 McGavock, also a researcher with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, says each episode is a conversation that will take students through the scientific process of generating ideas, testing a clinical hypothesis and sharing the results.  

“The amount of information available to residents getting started in research is enormous and could be super intimidating. We are providing a starting point and map to simplify the process,” said McGavock. 

The first two episodes focus on ‘how to develop a research question’ with episode one featuring a dialogue with pioneering pediatric researcher and professor Dr. Peter Rosenbaum of McMaster University.  Other early episodes give insights into topics like choosing a mentor, an introduction to various types of clinical research designs and incorporating race and anti-racism into a research project. 

McGavock said this podcast will also provide residents with a set of tools and resources they can easily access when they are working on their own (here). Since each episode is only 30 minutes, it allows those with limited time an opportunity to listen while on their commute or during other daily activities. 

“Every episode has a guest scientist in a different domain and should help fast-track the learner’s project. They will benefit from this interplay of discussion and Q & A with an expert, and then they can go right to the resource that they need, so they can do this independently.” 

While the podcast is geared towards residents, McGavock said graduate students and scientists at every level could also benefit from it. 

“Any graduate student launching into a project that involves humans could enjoy and learn from these interviews. There’s a big pool of students wanting to get into clinical research and I think they can use this as an entry level resource and learn what is expected at the highest level.”  

McGavock has three seasons of the podcast mapped out, as that is the typical length for a residency research project, but said he has no plans to stop making new episodes once the three seasons are complete.  

“This podcast has been a dream of mine for years and without the incredible support and production from UMFM station manager Jared McKetiak it would not be possible,” said McGavock. The first of 14 episodes was released in early 2025 and will drop weekly until mid April.  Episodes can be found on all streaming platforms along with the companion website and UMFM website.  

The Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources student studying for his master’s in microbiology felt isolated when he arrived in Canada. He did not know what to expect but was excited to get started. 

“When I first arrived in Canada, I felt alone. I didn’t have any friends or know where to go on campus; I was just trying to figure out my way.” 

Since arriving in Canada in September 2023, Rei Shibue has stayed in St John’s residence, where he’s been able to be close to his classes and build friendships that have helped him find his home away from home.

“For the first while in the residence, I kept to myself. I didn’t talk much, ate alone in the dining room, and attended classes. Over the last year, though, that’s changed significantly.”

As Rei continues his studies in microbiology, where he is investigating microbes in the Arctic Ocean, he also finds his community in St John’s residence at monthly events and has become a residence don on the student support team.

“Attending events and getting involved in the residence has helped me meet some of my closest friends.”

“It’s the community I needed outside of class to feel like I’m home.” 

Looking to make a difference in the residence, Rei knew he wanted to get involved on the dons team to help students navigate the problems he once faced when coming to Canada.

“Being a don allows me to continue building relationships in the residence while giving back to the community and the students here.” 

As the dons prepare to welcome more new students into the residence in Winter 2025, Rei has found being a resident to be rewarding and fulfilling in more ways than he could imagine.

“I’m grateful to be a part of this team and community, which has given me so much.”

To learn more about St John’s residence, visit our website. 

To submit your application for Winter 2025 accommodations, contact our Dean of Residence.

Parinaz is a Master of Natural Resources Management (MNRM) student at the University of Manitoba, supervised by Dr. Shirley Thompson. Her thesis project focused on redesigning an urban space to make it safe and secure for people as a public place. Within the scope of her thesis for a degree in Natural Resources Management, Parinaz engaged with the Pinawa, Manitoba community to undertake a project aimed at enhancing the infrastructure for active transportation. This endeavor was to encourage a more active lifestyle — a more enhanced quality of living in Pinawa.

Parinaz’s GIS story map, titled “Green and Active Transportation Planning: Pinawa, Manitoba,” is part of her research to visually document and analyze the impacts of this initiative, further enriching the academic and practical insights into the project’s contributions to active transportation and community development.  The story map comprises six different interactive maps and highlights the need for transportation transition. All work was completed using the tools available under the University of Manitoba’s GIS Hub, managed by Meg Miller through UM Libraries.

By focusing on the increase of non-motorized forms of transportation, Parinaz’s project aimed to consider how communities plan their public spaces and infrastructure and contribute to both the physical and mental well-being of the community members. Moreover, it aligns with the broader objectives of sustainability, assisting in the transformation of Pinawa into a vibrant community committed to environmental stewardship.

For over a decade now, Esri in cooperation with its international distributors, has recognized the exemplary mapping work of students through the Esri Young Scholars Award. The applications received from students in Canada each year reflect the diverse applications and research fields where geographic information systems (GIS) are used- from natural to built environments, historical landscapes, transportation, healthcare access, and many others.

Parinaz’s story maps, along with a selection of others, can be viewed in Canada’s 2024 Esri Young Scholars Award story map collection. Information for the 2025 competition will be released in early 2025.

We recently spoke with Tawana, who has lived at St John’s since 2019, serving as a Senior Don (RA) since Fall 2022. She moved from Zimbabwe to study psychology and learned about the residence through people from her program. In our conversation, Tawana recounted how from the moment she walked into the residence for the first time, she knew it felt like home. Tawana is one of several students who lived at St John’s during the ups and downs of the pandemic: navigating virtual classes, quarantines, and lockdown restrictions, and helping keep fellow residents safe as part of her role as Senior Don, all the while building close friendships that will last a lifetime.  

Brothers Bryan and Neil have likewise lived at St John’s through the pandemic, with Bryan having called St John’s College home for the past three years and Neil joining him in Winnipeg in January 2022. Coming from a small Ghanaian community, these two weren’t sure what to expect when they moved to Canada; however, it didn’t take long for both to jump headfirst into College culture by attending sporting events, getting involved in Residence and Student Councils, applying for scholarships and bursaries, volunteering to enhance their professional development, and enjoying delicious food.  

Speaking of delicious food and events, here are a variety of benefits residence students get as part of life at St John’s:  

• Single occupancy rooms where students can have their privacy and room wifi. 
• Our comprehensive all-you-care-to-eat meal plan offering 19 meals per week including halal meal plan. 
• Access to residence common rooms including our TV lounge and games room. 
• Access to scholarships and bursaries available only to College members. 
• Academic support, including advisory help and access to a dedicated residence study lounge.    
• 24-hour access to the College campus, including after-hours access to classrooms and meeting rooms for studying or working on group projects.   
• 24/7/365 interpersonal support and referral from a committed team of Dons.   

If you are looking for a place to call home as you study at the University of Manitoba this fall, apply now to St John’s residence. 

“Even if I was reluctant at first, over the 21 years I had been working in nursing, I had fallen in love with the profession and so it only made sense for me to pursue my master’s degree,” said Van Haute. “Out of all the mainstream health professions, to me, nursing offers the most holistic patient-centred and family-centred lens on how to care for people and how to design and plan health systems and that’s what I’m really interested in.”

Having completed her master’s, she jokes that she is now in nursing school for the fifth time as she works to complete her PhD. Her research, concentrated in Churchill, Manitoba, focuses on incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing to guide health systems planning, including the use of traditional healing practices into the health system. Her project, tied directly to truth and reconciliation, asks what it means to privilege Indigenous ways of knowing and doing alongside more mainstream health services.

“The goal is to bring together Indigenous community members, Knowledge Keepers, and health facility staff to have conversations around where we’ve been, where are we now, and where we want to go in the future. By creating spaces for dialogue on how to bring together different and sometimes opposing worldview, we can find a way to move forward collectively. Then [we will] hopefully apply these learnings across Canada, but especially to the larger part of the health system here in Manitoba,” she said.

Van Haute wanted to pursue a PhD because she saw it as an opportunity to promote Indigenous health equity, an area of study she’s passionate about. Wanting to honour that with as much time and space as possible, and recognizing the intense mental focus and concentration completing a PhD requires, she applied for and received the 2023-24 Indigenous Doctoral Program Fellowship and the 2023-24 Foundation for Registered Nurses of Manitoba Inc. Graduate Scholarship and Award.

“I am so grateful to receive these awards because they’ve allowed me to carve out some time to give myself and others the gift of doing my dissertation work in a good way,” she said. “Throughout my academic career, I have always worked close to full-time while also being a full-time student. My goal for when I completed my coursework for my PhD program was not to work so that I could devote my time to my research and to the community of Churchill.”

Another reason Van Haute wanted to pursue a PhD is because she knows that social advancements rooted in political activism also require support from structures such as academia to bring meaningful and systemic change. This research is a great example of that because it allows for the centering of the voices of Indigenous community members working alongside Indigenous and non-Indigenous clinicians and health leaders, who may have previously not been able to influence changes to the health system. By using her own and others’ lived experience, she can uncover where the health system’s priorities have conflicted with the community’s and support the community to move forward together.

“While I’m truly grateful and feel honoured for the scholarships and fellowships I’ve received, I believe this funding is about so much more than just me,” she said. “Scholarships, like I’ve received, are about supporting students that are going to be carrying this forward for the next generation. In turn, they will pass it on again, hopefully toward the advancement of society as a whole.”

As a Métis woman from the Red River Métis settlement here in Treaty 1 Territory, Van Haute is also thankful for the opportunity to connect with her Indigenous community.

“I’m learning how beautiful reclamation of culture and reclamation of ceremony can be and what that can mean for people in the community,” she said. “Coming out of Africa, working in famine, working with war zones, I was carrying a large amount of vicarious trauma and not realizing the impact it was having on me. I wasn’t born in culture, so when I started healing and connecting to my culture through my ceremony family, it shifted the way I understood things and brought together my nursing experience with traditional health and healing practices.”

The much anticipated Three Minute Thesis (3MT©) competition is set to kick of its heats on March 7, 12 and 13th featuring a diverse array of graduate students ready to captivate audiences with their groundbreaking research.

The 3MT© competition, renowned for its distinctive format where challengers distill years of research in to a three-minute presentation, will showcase this year’s selection of thinkers, innovators and communicators. 

This year’s heats promise to be a showcase of multidisciplinary research, with participants from various disciplines. The diversity of topics reflects the dynamic nature of the research happening at the UM.

Heat #1 – Bannatyne Campus, 050 Apotex Centre at 10:00am

• Stella Onwah – Immunology
• Kaden Baskerville – Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Raneeta Thingnam – Physiology and Pathophysiology
• Julie Donahue – Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
• Ara Anam-Biochemistry and Medical Genetics
• Megan Crooks-Psychology
• Saeid Maghsoudi-Physiology and Pathophysiology
• Samuel Lawal-Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
• Sara Crooks –Biochemistry and Medical Genetics
• Akshi Malik –Physiology and Pathophysiology

Heat #2 – Fort Garry Campus, E3-262 Engineering Building, 10:00am

• Breanne Semenko – Human Nutritional Sciences
• Maria Baranowski – Community Health Sciences
• Dasinija Karikalan – Biosystems Engineering
• Tamunoibi Ekine – Interior Design
• Joanna Candas – Human Nutritional Sciences
• Isanka Gimhani – Biosystems Engineering
• Vidana Hewage Harshani Nadesshani – Food Sciences
• Foluke Oyekale – Human Nutritional Sciences
• Surani Matharaarachchi – Statistics
• Jocelyn Zambrano Alvarado – Microbiology
• Dallas Murphy – Psychology
• Abhinav Tiwari – Biosystems Engineering
• Shanelle Gingras – Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
• Jason Mergler – Applied Health Sciences

Heat #3 – Fort Garry Campus, E3-262 Engineering Building, 1:00pm

• Dimitar Tomovski – Philosophy
• Farzan Farnaghi – Interior Design
• Naman Agarwal – Physics and Astronomy
• Ruwani Wimalasekara – Microbiology
• Kofi Oduro – Food Science
• Cole Treyturik – Physics and Astronomy
• Dario Lorenzoni – Physics and Astronomy
• Termeh Shakery – Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
• Luma Clarino Lopes – Chemistry
• Maximillan Scott – Earth Sciences
• Ishika Mittal – Physiology and Pathophysiology
• Nnedinso Aguwa – Food Science
• Maheshi Jayasinghe – Biosystems Engineering
• Neil Lorente Cobo – Microbiology

The 3MT heats have become a platform for researchers to hone their communication skills, and share their research with the broader community. Dr. Kelley Main, dean of the faculty of graduate studies says “The 3MT competition is not just a showcase of graduate student research and innovation but also an opportunity for the public to engage with the incredible work happening in our academic community. We can’t wait to witness the impact of these intriguing presentations.”

Save the Date: Three challengers from each of the 3 heats, along with three wildcard selections will advance to the final competition being held on April 10th at 7:00pm at the Robert B Schultz Theatre, St. Johns College. Everyone is invited to attend the heats and the final event competition to cheer on the competitors. The winner of the UM 3MT© competition will then advance to the Western Regional 3MT competition which is is being hosted by the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus on May 8, 2024.

More information on the 3MT© competition can be found at umanitoba.ca/3mt.