Maheshi Walawwe presented “Invasive Species Management” at the student pitch competitions on Tuesday, Oct. 28. Photo by Dixie Edmondson.
Although pursuing a doctoral degree in computational science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Maheshi Walawwe did something unexpected when she stepped on stage to present her research—she left the equations out.
“I know that many people don’t like the equations and algorithms,” said Walawwe, a first-year student who came to UTC from Kandy, Sri Lanka. “But I wanted to give that idea in a different way so that people can understand how we can use mathematics in society and for the future. I arranged my presentation without any equations. I wanted to talk about basic things with simple English—how we can interact with math and our world.”
Walawwe’s approach helped her earn first place in the Graduate Student Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition on Tuesday, Oct. 28. That same afternoon, undergraduate students took the stage for the Research Elevator Pitch competition.
The competitions, held in collaboration between the UTC Graduate School and the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavor (URaCE), gave students from across disciplines a chance to share their work in concise presentations before a panel of UTC faculty, staff and Chattanooga professionals. Prizes ranged from $250 to $750.
Dr. Lisa Piazza, executive director of URaCE, said the format gave students a chance to practice translating their work to a general audience.
“If you get really good at pitching your ideas to non-experts, that’s going to give you some skills and great experience to move to the next step,” Piazza said. “You can tell a compelling story about your time here at UTC and the value of the degree and the experience.”
Dr. Ethan Carver, associate provost for Academic Affairs and dean of the Graduate School, said this experience is just as essential to graduate students participating in the 3MT competition.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to get up in front of people, take highly complex ideas, distill it down into the basics and talk about it in layman’s terms so that other people outside of your discipline can understand,” Carver said. “If you have the best idea and have an amazing project, if you can’t actually communicate that to not just your colleagues but to other people, it’s hard to make that really real and exist.”
Working with mentor Dr. Lakmali Weerasena, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics, Walawwe studied how mathematical models can help remove harmful plants while reducing costs and regrowth—noting that “invasive species are spreading fast.”
“We started to investigate invasive species and we collected some data with the Japanese honeysuckle and Chinese privet around Tennessee,” she said. “We want to find a method how we can maximize the number of plants that we can remove while minimizing the cost and future regrowth.”
Second place went to Ali Abuelgasim, an engineering management and technology student, for “Adaptive Insole Design to Prevent Foot Ulcers in Diabetic Neuropathy Patients.” Abuelgasim, mentored by Dr. Erkan Kaplanoglu and Dr.Gazi Akgun, focused on using adaptive materials and technology to design custom insoles that reduce the risk of foot ulcers in people with diabetes.
“I have relatives and close ones reach a bad stage and have nothing to do but an amputation,” said Abuelgasim, originally from Sudan. “The goal of our design is to stop the ulcers before they even form.”
Ali Abuelgasim
In the undergraduate competition, participants had two minutes and only two slides each.
Noah Wyatt took first place for “A Low-Cost Portable Cosmic Ray Detector for Exploration and Education.”
“We have a very large detector that was very hard to carry around,” said Wyatt, a junior physics major from Chattanooga. “We wanted some money to build some handheld, very portable detectors that we could take into the caves and do some research. We also want to take other organizations on campus or just people who are interested and do demonstrations—and teach them about physics and geology.”
Wyatt said the prize will help expand the project and give him more opportunities to do what he enjoys most.
“This will allow us to build several detectors; the more detectors we have, the more accurate things get,” he said. “Not only do I love research, I also love teaching physics and science to people who may not even think they’re interested in it.”
Noah Wyatt
Senior criminal justice major Waltkia Clay from Selma, Alabama, earned second place for “When Silence Speaks the Loudest: Safety Tap.” Her idea for a wearable bracelet would let users alert others in emergencies by simply tapping their wrists.
One tap alerts emergency contacts, two taps notify trusted community members and three taps call 911.
Clay said earning recognition for her design was validating.
“Even those who didn’t win an award put in the same effort, balancing coursework and long hours of studying,” Clay said. “It feels good to have placed—it means my hard work had purpose.”
Waltkia Clay
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