27 September 2024 3MT winner proud to bring her work to the international stage

For Katie O’Hagan, the most rewarding part of winning Lincoln University’s Three Minute Thesis competition is the chance to share the importance of her studies on the international stage

The Soil and Physical Sciences PhD student has spent years studying the relationship between trees and carbon levels in soil in an attempt to help both farmers and the environment but believes academics can only achieve so much without public support.  

That is why she decided to enter the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, which challenges postgraduate students to present their research in three minutes with a single slide, forcing them to make their work easy for a general audience to understand.

For Katie, that meant explaining her work using a simple analogy.

Her research focused on reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide by introducing it more effectively to soil through strategic tree placement.

Soil retained more carbon when it was near the edge of forest boundaries, which meant calculated placement of trees on farms could help increase carbon throughout the land.

“I was trying to think of a way to make it relatable to people,” Katie said.

It can help to think of the two main types of soil carbon like our bank accounts.

Unstable carbon was like an everyday spending account. It received money regularly but was spent pretty quickly.

“This is just like our unstable soil carbon pool, most of which is quickly turned over by microbes and released back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.”

Stable carbon pools were more like a savings account. It received less money each payday, but could slowly build up over time.

For carbon, this meant it could be stored for centuries to millennia without being released back into the atmosphere.

“It was a really good way to get across the basic concept in a way that people could understand.

“I think people clicked with it quite quickly.”

Despite being a vital component to food production and a sustainable future, Katie felt soil science was often overlooked by people.

“It’s underappreciated and people don’t really understand it.

Everyone’s like ‘why would you study soil?’ It’s literally where our food grows. We wouldn’t be able to eat without it.

As the winner of the Lincoln competition, Katie will be competing in the international Virtual Asia-Pacific 3MT Semi-Final Showcase, which will have a video of her presentation shared internationally.

She is excited by the prospect of people from around the world getting a little glimpse of her work and having a better understanding of soil.

The more people who stood the topic, the more people who would support further research into soil, she said.

Support meant potentially more funding, which could lead to better results for everybody.

“It’s really exciting to be able to put it out there and show that this is important.”

Register to watch the Asia-Pacific 3MT Semi-Final Showcase on October 8 2024