{"id":1469,"date":"2025-10-30T15:19:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T04:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/?p=1469"},"modified":"2025-10-30T15:19:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T04:49:01","slug":"spotlight-on-success-cate-sextons-3mt-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/2025\/10\/30\/spotlight-on-success-cate-sextons-3mt-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight on Success: Cate Sexton\u2019s 3MT Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A huge congratulations to Cate Sexton from the College of Science and Engineering for her remarkable achievements in the 2025 Three Minute Thesis (3MT\u00ae) Competition!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1470 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/92\/2025\/10\/Cate-Sexton.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"262\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The 3MT\u00ae is a global academic challenge that invites PhD students to present their research in just three minutes \u2014 using one static slide and no props \u2014 to a non-specialist audience. Developed by The University of Queensland, the competition helps researchers sharpen their communication, presentation, and storytelling skills while making their work accessible and engaging.<\/p>\n<p>Cate\u2019s PhD research explores the deep-time relationships between people and animals in semi-arid southern Australia. Her project focuses on animal bones from Warratyi rock shelter (Vulkathunha\u2013Gammon Ranges, Adnyamathanha Country), weaving together archaeology, palaeontology, and traditional knowledge to uncover ancient interactions.<\/p>\n<p>After winning the Flinders University 3MT Final in August \u2014 following success in the College Heats and Semi-final \u2014 Cate advanced to the <a href=\"https:\/\/threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au\/asia-pac-3mt-final-showcase\">Asia-Pacific Final,<\/a> where she was named one of just eight finalists from a pool of 55 entrants across the region. She was later awarded runner-up in the <a href=\"https:\/\/iru.edu.au\/iru-3mt-2025\/\">Innovative Research Universities (IRU) 3MT Competition<\/a>, with winners announced at the Senior Leaders Forum in September.<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on her experience, Cate shared:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIt\u2019s pretty amazing what can be achieved in three minutes \u2014 and what can come from simply deciding to give it a go. Entering the 3MT was a last-minute \u2018why not?\u2019 decision, and I\u2019m so glad I did. The process of preparing, editing, practising, and presenting expanded my skillset in ways I didn\u2019t expect. I gained confidence, resilience, and a sharper ability to communicate. Plus, I made new connections across the university and shared my research with audiences who might never have encountered it otherwise. It\u2019s been personally rewarding and professionally invaluable \u2014 I can\u2019t recommend it enough.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Three Minute Thesis - Cate Sexton\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1306EBmava8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Watch Cate\u2019s presentation (above) and learn about the other 2025 Flinders 3MT Finalists <a href=\"https:\/\/author.flinders.edu.au\/content\/flinders\/en\/research\/researcher-development\/hdr\/three-minute-thesis.html?wcmmode=disabled\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Inspired? Registrations of interest for the 2026 3MT Competition are now open. If you\u2019re a PhD student ready to share your research and grow your skills \u2014 just like Cate \u2014 sign up <a href=\"https:\/\/forms.office.com\/pages\/responsepage.aspx?id=u30Vcr3o3ECNAD8IwjSsR7jr5HwmKvRCrOf_DYgJAtRUQVVEV09QS0hRRTFIUEdKOEVUUVpIMkU5Qy4u&amp;route=shorturl\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A huge congratulations to Cate Sexton from the College of Science and Engineering for her remarkable achievements in the 2025 Three Minute Thesis (3MT\u00ae) Competition! The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3518,"featured_media":1471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/hdr-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}