Writing Center 2020 3MT Competition

Transcript of Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition 2020

Susan Daniels (00:00):
Welcome to Amherst College's 3MT®, the Three Minute Thesis competition. I'm Susan Daniels, the associate for public speaking here at the College and it is my sincere pleasure to serve as host for this event. I first want to welcome some special guests to the Zoom platform, the President of Amherst College, Biddy Martin. Welcome Biddy.

Biddy Martin (00:26):
Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.

Susan Daniels (00:29):
Perfect. I also want to welcome the Provost and Dean of the Faculty, Catherine Epstein. Welcome, Catherine.

Catherine Epstein (00:38):
Hi everybody. I just got unmuted so it's great to welcome everyone. I'm thrilled to be here.

Susan Daniels (00:43):
Nice. Thank you. We're really appreciative that you're joining us. You know, although we've turned off the audio and the video for a lot of the participants here at the Zoom event, I still wanted to take a second to thank some very special people who helped to produce this event and that is John Kuhnhardt, Jesse Barba, Pete Marvin, Marcus DeMaio, the Office of Communications, and of course the Writing Center.

Susan Daniels (01:13):
Thank you so much for helping to produce this event today. Ten thesis students nominated by their departments will compete to communicate the significance of their research in three minutes or less. That is no small feat, especially given the fact that when these thesis writers first sent us their proposals way back in late February this year, they had no idea, none of us did, that they would be working and learning in isolation and that they would eventually prepare to deliver their three minute thesis speech to a remote audience. I'm especially proud of these seniors for taking on the challenge of learning how to energetically and engagingly present their thesis, not to a live audience, but to a tiny little circle of a camera sitting on top of their computer. I hope that you will take today as a kind of celebration to all of you for your hard work and your endurance and your enthusiasm.

Susan Daniels (02:24):
It is really warming to me to see how many friends have shown up to support you. How many members of the Amherst College community are here along with your families to help watch you and support you in this event. Let's meet the judges now. Andrew Grant Thomas. Andrew and his partner Melissa run a national nonprofit called Embrace Race, which supports parents and other caregivers in raising children who are thoughtful, informed, and brave about race in the United States. Welcome Andrew. We're thrilled that you're a judge today. Sharon Sharry has been a librarian in Western Massachusetts for over 30 years and she joins us as one of the judges today. Part of Sharon's background is that she served as the head of the branch library in Great Barrington, the director of the Sunderland public library, the director of the Greenfield public library, and for the last nine years she has been the director of the Jones Library system right here in Amherst.

Susan Daniels (03:33):
Welcome Sharon. Our last judge is Cherry Sullivan. Cherry told me that she is thrilled to be a judge for the 3MT because she works at Hampshire Hope, which is a coalition addressing the local opioid crisis and she recognizes that exceptional communication is foundational in social change. Welcome, Cherry. We're so glad that you could join us again today as judge. Those are the judges for the first place and the runner up today, but at the end of the 10 speeches today, you, our audience, will get a chance to vote for the People's Choice Award, so be sure to take some notes along the way about both the content of the thesis presentation as well as the performance of it and stay with us for the next 30 minutes. Let's begin. Our first speaker from the political science department is Jason Greenfield and the name of his speech is Laugh, Share, Hate

Jason Greenfield (04:40):
Picture a 13 year old boy playing video games. We're all in quarantine, so you might think he's playing Skype Shuffleboard or FaceTime Go Fish, but he's not. He's playing Fortnight and a fellow gamer puts a link in the chat to a meme on 4Chan. Boy clicks it and he recognizes Pepe the frog who he knows is supposed to be bad but kind of just looks like frog. Pepe is wearing a black and red military uniform and he's pointing a rifle at a man with a scraggly beard and a crooked nose. The caption reads: Doctor, doctor, give me the news. I got a bad case of killing Jews.

Jason Greenfield (05:25):
Describing that meme out loud to you all made me uncomfortable and it's the only one I was willing to repeat in public. While offensive, these memes are not just jokes. My thesis research examines how humor helps hate. Memes and jokes are some of the most powerful ways the alt-right can make their messages of hate more accessible to average internet users. The problem is people aren't taking these jokes seriously. Andrew Anglin, founder of the largest American Nazi website, tells writers for his site, the unindoctrinated should not be able to tell if we're joking or not. The alt-right knows what they're doing. It's time we accept it to. My thesis examines how the alt-right weaponizes humor by leveraging its rhetorical power. Individuals learn new concepts better when material is presented alongside comedic content. Humor also helps people develop relationships by building an in-group who laugh with some and at others.

Jason Greenfield (06:30):
And most importantly, humor allows people to get away with saying things through joke that they otherwise wouldn't be able to say. How many times have you heard someone say, it's just a joke. But the power of the phrase, it's just a joke, is that it allows people to avoid taking responsibility for their words. This is why Andrew Anglin tells writers for his site to use humorous language because it offers them an escape route. It's time we shut it down. My thesis works to identify the violence cycle of laugh, share, hate. By identifying how the cycle works, I can help direct future research into how we can break it. But for now we can all do our part by resisting the urge to laugh and recognizing hate before we share it. The next time I want to play video games, I'll pass on the Fortnight and stick to Zoom hide and go seek instead. When I next encounter a racist or hateful meme, I know what I'll do. I'll treat it as no laughing matter.

Susan Daniels (07:39):
Our next speaker from the neuroscience department is Emily Kwan and the name of her speech is: Protein Jetpacks. The Key to Improving Brain Function.

Emily Kwan (07:51):
It's Emily, grandpa, not Rachel, Emily. These are the words I use to remind my grandfather of my name. My grandfather, like 6 million other Americans, suffers from dementia, a gradual loss of memory and other cognitive functions. The brain is our powerhouse. It controls how we breathe, sleep, and learn. It's the organ that helps you understand the words I'm using in my speech right now. But what's causing the decline that we see in those suffering from dementia like my grandfather, and many other brain diseases and disorders? Researchers study this decline by examining the proteins necessary for brain function. That's what I'm doing in my thesis research. I'm studying an enzyme called BCR. You can think of an enzyme like a jetpack. If you're late to class, a jetpack will get you there much faster. BCR speeds up the activity of these molecules called G proteins, which are necessary for your brain cells to survive and function. We know that when BCR is absent, G proteins don't have their jetpack and they work much more slowly. This slowness can cause huge problems in memory retention and brain development. Controlling how BCR works is necessary for G proteins. To function properly.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
Well, we know what BCR does. We know less about how it's controlled. There are other jetpack proteins like BCR and these proteins have a part called C2 which acts like a booster pack and help speed up their jetpack activity. BCR also has the C2 part, but its function has never been studied for my thesis. I wanted to find out what C2 does. I plan to make protein with only the C2 part and the BCR jetpack and compare its activity to the BCR jetpack alone. If we saw any change at all, we'd know that C2 caused it. This past Marc, my research was interrupted and I wasn't able to perform this experiment, but this research, once accomplished, could lead us to discovering a new way that BCR is controlled. This would not only add to our current understanding of BCR but also give us insight into what keeps our brains functioning well. I hope that through continued study of BCR, we'll get closer to understanding how we can improve brain function and one day help people like my grandfather remember their loved ones names.

Susan Daniels (10:46):
Our next speaker, from the history department. Is AJ Klein and the name of his speech is: Antitoxin in America.

AJ Klein (10:57):
We are going to listen to the science. Sounds like a great plan. It means we're going to follow empirical observation and unassailable logic. Okay. Science is not a set of facts. It's not a book with all the answers. Instead, it's a complex process which takes time and often involves contentious debate. We should be careful about how we use the word science to justify a course of action. We are currently in the greatest medical challenge in the last century. If science doesn't give us a clear cut answer, then how are we supposed to use it to get out of the crisis? In my thesis, I study how doctors reach a scientific consensus. I focus on the diphtheria antitoxin and how way back in the 1890s physicians reacted when this revolutionary drug first came to the United States. diphtheria is one of the most feared diseases of childhood. It caused a leathery membrane of dead tissue to grow across the throat. It could lead to suffocation and the mortality rate was like 50 per cent. But in 1894, European scientists announced a cure for diphtheria, the antitoxin, which they extract it from horse blood.

AJ Klein (12:05):
Physicians were skeptical of this at first, but after a few years, the diphtheria antitoxin became the consensus treatment for diphtheria among American physicians. How did they reach this consensus? Well, prominent physicians made arguments in favor of the antitoxin, which were specific and which were firmly backed by statistical data. The most convincing advocates did not promise a panacea. Instead, they analyzed thousands of cases and showed how antitoxin when given early in the disease and in sufficient doses, give patients the best chance of surviving. Importantly, this conclusion did not go beyond what the evidence supported. When conclusions, even the ones that have a scientific basis, go beyond what the data support you can have problems. For instance, in the 19th century, scientists learned that chlorine can kill bacteria, so some doctors were using that. Chlorine gas might make an effective treatment for diphtheria. This led to several unfortunate children getting an early taste of chemical warfare and I'm sure we can all think of other examples where medical conclusions have come before the actual proof.

AJ Klein (13:22):
Science will get us through this COVID crisis, and we need to listen to experts to keep us informed. We should also look for how they reach their conclusions. When positions are based on firm experimental evidence, we should pay close attention, but when positions are based on speculation about the virus killing ability of the warm weather or anecdotal claims of antiviral anti-malarial, maybe we should be a bit more skeptical.

Susan Daniels (13:53):
Our next speaker, from the anthropology department, is Abby LeCates and the name of her speech is: Responding to the Opioid Crisis: Criminalization or Treatment.

Abby LeCates (14:06):
In 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died of a drug overdose involving opioids. As this tragedy continues to unfold every day, the question remains, what can we do about it? Addiction has become almost universally recognized as a disease and yet the criminal justice system remains frustratingly intertwined with treatment efforts. Treatment and punishment are functionally inseparable. As a result, jail has come to act as a gateway to care and this system, arrest and incarceration, proceed treatment. Upon their release from jail, individuals face not only the challenges of their disease, but also the stigma of criminality, making more recovery especially difficult. We need institutional change which fully separates

Abby LeCates (14:52):
treatment and punishment. Until then, how do communities support individuals and their recovery from opioid addiction? My research examines how Otsego county, a rural community in upstate New York, has mobilized. In response to this question, I chose this county because I know the people and I have been a witness to their struggle in the space of the opioid crisis. This fall, I learned about the county's efforts to become recovery-friendly. Through interviews with members of law enforcement and social service organizations as well as caregivers and employers, I learned that Otsego county, recovery-friendly means taking a person-centered approach. For example, a woman who was 22 days sober, recently released from jail and homeless, came to a local recovery organization seeking help. Here, rather than being told, she was asked what she needed to recover. This woman identified being unable to read as her biggest barrier to recovery.

Abby LeCates (15:49):
The organization connected her to literacy volunteers and since then she has been in sustained recovery. Businesses within the county have similarly take a person-centered approach, hiring people despite past criminal records and tailoring work schedules to meet individual recovery needs. Through these efforts, leaders of Otsego county make recovery possible every day. While these efforts are notable, inn an ideal world, they would be unnecessary. Imagine the treatment network in which jail no longer acts as a gateway to care and which people no longer have to experience detox in a cell. My research sheds a light on the complexity of our national drug policy as it gets enacted within our immediate communities. Once we see it, we can do something about it. Also, just as the people in Otsego county are doing, we need to consider our own roles amid this complexity. Ask yourself in what ways might I consciously or unconsciously perpetuate stigma? When we ask such questions, we begin to understand how our communities affect experiences of addiction and recovery and understanding which can ultimately inspire institutional change.

Susan Daniels (17:06):
Our next speaker, from the German studies department, is Bixie Eutsler and the name of their speech is: History Distorted.

Bixie Eutsler (17:17):
Last summer, my partner and I went to see a pagan rock band. I was so excited to be in a room surrounded by people who share my beliefs and values. At least that's what I expected. As the concert venue began to fill up, I realized that as a queer trans man, I do not belong. Now, there wasn't anything obvious about the people around me to make me feel that way. No maga hats or clans hoods. Rather, it was in the details, in the jewelry they wore, the key chains, the tattoos. At this festival, I saw more Thor's hammer pendants then I have ever seen. This is significant because Thor's hammer isn't just a pretty mythological symbol. It's a common calling card for white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Bixie Eutsler (18:15):
Now, I was privileged in this situation. I'm not a person of color and at the time I wasn't visibly trans. I didn't have any outward characteristics that would have put me in danger, but that's not true for everyone. Symbols like the Thor's hammer served two important purposes in right-wing racist communities. First, they're a discreet form of communication, subtle enough to be worn in public, but specific enough to be recognized. Secondly, by using subtle symbolism, these groups spread their ideology. Think of it this way. If a man and a swastika t-shirt said that American schools need to teach more about European history, you would probably be rightfully concerned. If, however, he was wearing a symbol you didn't recognize perhaps a rune, you might be more likely to listen to him. In this way he can lead you or others into conversations that begin with a concern about our public school system that can quickly devolve into racist rhetoric.

Bixie Eutsler (19:20):
In my thesis, I look at an array of symbols that have been distorted from their historical roots to start a racist agenda. Ultimately, if we as a society understand both the actual history and the racist rhetoric that is in use today, we can see just how little sense right wing racism makes. My work highlights the divide between actual history and racist rhetoric. We owe it to each other and to ourselves to understand the ways in which racism is perpetuated and upheld and to dismantle it step by step. Join me in understanding the history and current use so that we can make the world a sacred place for everyone.

Susan Daniels (20:07):
Our next speaker, from the political science department, is Sarah Weintraub and the name of her speech is: PACS and the Partisan Gender Gap.

Sarah Weintraub (20:20):
Today, in the US House of Representatives, 101 of the 435 representatives are women. This number -- 101-- is the largest we've ever seen, yet true gender equality remains far off. At the current rate, women will not make up half of Congress even by the year 2050. We may continue to vote at higher rates than men, but we aren't seeing this activity translate into equal gender representation. Women make up more than half of the United States population, yet only 23% of the house. Of these 101 women in the house, 88 are Democrats compared to only 13 Republican women. This whopping difference is called the partisan gender gap. While all women face challenges in politics, these numbers led me to ask the question, why is the partisan gender gaps so huge and why does it disproportionately affect Republican women?

Sarah Weintraub (21:24):
In my research, I looked for explanations to the partisan gender gap. My addition to the existing research is a focus on the structural relationship between the party establishment and the women's pacs in each part. A PAC, or political action committee, is an organization that donates to or against candidates. Emily's List is the largest PAC that focuses on supporting female candidates. In 2018 alone, Emily's List donated over $11 million to support pro-choice democratic candidates. I argue that the democratic party has successfully fostered a strong relationship with it's women's PACS like Emily's List. The Republican party has no relationship with women's PACS. This difference in the fundraising and endorsement power of the women's PACS and the two parties has greatly impacted the number of women that each party elects. Women are shown to be better at creating inclusive environments, understanding new viewpoints, and forming more nuanced solutions to big political problems.

Sarah Weintraub (22:35):
Historically, women have been more open to bipartisanship than their male colleagues. While the party culture around electing women may be hard to change and the party's history of electing women can't be changed, my research can start the conversation that there is something each party can actively do to elect more women, enhance its relationship with the women's packs. In Washington DC there's a saying that if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. We can't let that happen. When women from both sides of the aisle are brought to the table, we will be able to create a more productive and representative democracy.

Susan Daniels (23:20):
Our next speaker, from the biochemistry and biophysics department, is Emily Ma and the name of her speech is: Packing DNA: Improving Chances for Fertility.

Emily Ma (23:33):
Imagine, after a year of trying and waiting for a child, the painted nursery remains vacant. The cradle empty. For many couples, this is the reality. Trying and waiting. Infertility affects one out of every eight couples and for two out of every three cases, it's the sperm that's the issue you see. You see, for sperm to fertilize an egg, it must accomplish a remarkable feat. Swim a long distance to deliver half of the instruction manual for the new child's life, its DNA. On its journey, it's crucial that this DNA is packed properly. Tight packing not only protects the DNA from damage, but also allows sperm to swim more efficiently to its destination. Think of it as the difference between swimming with a swim ring around your waist or swimming with the well-fitted life vest. If we could figure out how to package DNA into a vest instead of a ring, then we can understand what causes mis-packaging and potentially find ways to treat it. The problem is, this packaging process in sperm isn't well understood even at the most basic level, so that's what I set out to do in my thesis.

Emily Ma (25:09):
I studied the proteins that packaged DNA in sperm. Specifically, I studied the protein proteome, which replaces proteins that normally pack DNA and full [inaudible] six times tighter. Using different imaging techniques, I look at the dynamics of this process in real time. Seeing how DNA folds differently during this transition, tells us about how these two proteins are interacting. My findings suggest that proteome kicks out the previous protein by out-competing it for binding spots on DNA. Knowing how to identify infertile sperm such as those with less competitive proteome, could help us select only the sperm with the highest likelihood of success in the future. This understanding could help us improve fertility treatments that help couples have children. So instead of enduring cycle after cycle of treatment, those same couples could bring home a happy baby on their first try.

Susan Daniels (26:21):
Our next speaker from the psychology department is Tommy Mobley and the name of his speech is: Say Something

Tommy Mobley (26:33):
A few years ago, I was in my college's Dining Hall, when I noticed a classmate of mine staring down at the floor. His shoulders were slouched and his exhausted expression made look like he was really struggling. I was concerned about him and I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but then I thought maybe I'm misreading his body language. Maybe he would be embarrassed if I asked him if he was okay or maybe I wouldn't be able to help him at all. So I never said anything. Weeks later I learned that this student had taken his own life and to this day I cannot shake the memory that I never said anything. This incident was actually the catalyst for my thesis research. First, I learned that anxiety, depression, and suicide are at an all time high with 13% of students reporting that they considered suicide in 2018. Second, I learned that fewer than 25% of students actually seek help for their mental health concerns.

Tommy Mobley (27:31):
And finally, I learned that of the students that do seek help, most do so because they were encouraged by a friend. Receiving encouragement from a friend is the biggest predictor of help-seeking behavior. And the college environment is ideal for students to recognize when a student is struggling. We eat together, we study together, we even sleep in the same dorms together. So why don't we always speak up? Well, it turns out that most students don't speak up for the same reasons that I didn't. Research shows three of the most common barriers preventing students from speaking up are not knowing the signs of mental health concerns, fear about how their friend will respond, and a lack of confidence in their ability to help. For my psychology thesis, I took all that research and I built an activity that I call Say Something. It improves the college student's willingness and ability to talk to a friend about their mental health.

Tommy Mobley (28:26):
Say Something is online. It takes just 15 minutes and it works. First it teaches students about the prevalence and signs of both anxiety and depression. Then it focuses on reducing the student's fear about how their friend will respond if they expressed concern. And finally, it teaches students proven and effective strategies about how to express their concerns. Say Something was tested on 150 students at Amherst College and the results revealed that three months later students, showed significantly improved empathy, moral courage and attitudes that increase one's willingness to intervene. Say Something is interactive, it is effective and it can easily be used as part of first year orientation programs on college campuses all over the world. When students worry a friend is struggling and feel empowered to say something by practicing empathy, moral courage, and having confidence in their ability to help, then more students will take care of each other, improving the mental health among millions of college students and in the end saving lives.

Susan Daniels (29:29):
Our next speaker is Elizabeth Sturley. Her interdisciplinary major is titled justice and human rights and the name of her speech is: An Atrocity By Any Other Name.

Elizabeth Sturley (29:43):
Words matter. At Amherst College, we spend hours analyzing words, intellectualizing language. We highlight our passions, support our claims, and champion our ideas with words. Here's one. Genocide. It's a shocking word. It's emotional. Genocide makes you stop in your tracks, but as much as we hear it, do we really know what genocide means? Polish Jewish linguist Raphael Lemkin created the term genocide in 1944. Its legal definition requires acts with the intent to destroy a group as a group, based on race, religion, nationality, or ethnicity. We need to understand the meaning of genocide to differentiate it from crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, mass killing. Words matter. Genocide expert and scholar William Chavis explained not every form of sexual harassment will qualify as rape. All homicide is not murder. Not every fizzy drink should be described as champagne. Not every atrocity is genocide. So when is genocide the appropriate term and when has it been appropriated for shock value?

Elizabeth Sturley (31:00):
My thesis asks the question, what is and is not genocide? My research examines the atrocities against a range of groups. Armenians in the Ottoman empire, Khmer Rouge victims in Cambodia and black Americans who were lynched in the United States, are these genocides? While their are arguments for and against naming each of them and genocide, my research persuades me that we should adopt a new term to accurately reflect their severity. David Schaeffer, the former Ambassador-At-Large for War Crimes issues, proposes a catch all term: atrocity crimes. I believe this term is powerful enough to justify action without the paralyzing weight of the term genocide. We must honor the power of words and adopt specific classifications for them. If we don't, first, the overuse of the term genocide will water down its power. As in the story of the boy who cried wolf, people will stop listening, and second, people experiencing atrocities won't get the help they need and history will repeat itself. Because the US state department refused to use the term genocide to describe the 1994 atrocities in Rwanda, we didn't act. In just a hundred days, 800,000 people died. With the work that I've started my thesis research, I hope to inspire teachers, parents, and world leaders to use accurate language when speaking about atrocities. Only when we hold ourselves and our leaders accountable will we be able to break the cycle of atrocities and achieve true justice in the world.

Susan Daniels (32:43):
Our last speaker, from the art history department, is Nate Corley, and the name of his speech is: Escaping Inferno.

Nate Corley (32:52):
This is a drawing of Dante's Inferno by the Renaissance artist Botticelli. In a way, all of us are in Inferno. Just like the sinners in Botticelli's drawing, we too are socially distant and isolated. We too are spread across the world or across the page with minimal interaction and we too suffer alone, not in a frozen tundra like Dante but instead, amidst our own dirty clothes and unkempt hair. These unprecedented times demand a new approach to problem solving. Here's the thing, in the humanities, we too often first develop a hypothesis and then impose it onto a work, picking and choosing examples. In the sciences, we too often focus narrowly on the data, rarely pausing to interpret. There's a huge disconnect between the ways we solve problems and neither method pfully works.

Nate Corley (33:51):
Last year, while studying Botticelli's Divine Comedy drawings, I ran into some of these challenges. The drawings are mysterious. Nobody knows what to make of them. Part of the problem is that there are so many drawings, about a hundred. How can we, with words, compare so many things at once? But after being one of the lucky few to travel to Italy and study the drawings in person, my research used a new approach, familiar from my chemistry major background and never before applied in art history. I found an unnoticed pattern and labeled the X, Y coordinates of all 2000 figures across Botticelli's hundred drawings and make heat maps for inferno, purgatory, and paradise to show where the figures tend to be on the page. My statistical visualizations revealed for the first time, that in the Inferno drawings, the figures are spread apart, alone with our own pain, modeling

Nate Corley (34:48):
Excellent social distancing. In purgatory, the people assemble into small communities, and in paradise, they come together in unity. But what's this pattern tell us? I argued Botticelli was most interested in Dante's construction of community and how the ways that we interact define our environment. He shows that in order to leave hell, we must build community, even small ones, to overcome our worst instincts. We are in Inferno now, but 500 years later we can still learn from Botticelli. He shows us how to fashion a paradise out of chaos, how to build community despite distance. Just like how my interdisciplinary approach to the drawings unearthed new patterns, we must approach this new challenge from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. And then as a community we will together find ways to embrace isolation and to escape Inferno.

Susan Daniels (35:51):
Thank you everyone. Now that we've seen all of the different speakers, it's time for the People's Choice. In just a minute, you will see a voting ballot on your screen and you will have approximately one minute to vote for the speaker of your choice by clicking on the circle next to their name and then pressing submit. I want to let you know that it's helpful if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the ballot so that you'll see the last two speakers and you will also find at the bottom the submit button. Once the voting is complete, I will come back on and I will announce the winners of the 3MT®, Something new this year. In the event that a student wins first place or runner-up and also accrues the most votes for the People's Choice Award, what we're going to do is automatically give the People's Choice Award to the student who received the next largest amounts of votes so that we can award three different prizes to three different students. Okay. You're going to be seeing the poll coming up the ballot. Be sure to scroll down to see the last two names and the submit button.

Susan Daniels (37:20):
And now finally we're going to award the three prizes to the speakers. I will begin with the award for the runner-up prize. Then I will announce first place and finally I will award the People's Choice award. The award for runner-up of the 3MT® competition 2020 goes to Sarah Weintraub for her speech PACS and the Partisan Gender Gap.

Speaker 10 (37:49):
[Applause]

Susan Daniels (37:53):
Congratulations, Sarah. The award for first place for his speech Say Something is Tommy Mobley. Congratulations, Tommy.

New Speaker (38:03):
[Applause]

New Speaker (38:10):
And last but certainly not least, the People's Choice award for the 2020 3MT® competition goes to Elizabeth Sturley for her speech An Atrocity By Any Other Name. Congratulations, Elizabeth.

Speaker 10 (38:28):
[Applause]

Susan Daniels (38:30):
Thank you all so much for coming to the 3MT® competition this year. We appreciate your attendance. There were over 350 people here today, and I hope that you all stay safe and keep speaking.