Helani Singhapurage, a fifth-year PhD student in Nonlinear Optics research group of the Physics
department of the University of Rhode Island, USA received the People’s choice winner in the first
annual Three Minute Thesis competition of the University of Rhode Island.
The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an academic research communication competition developed by The
University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. In this competition graduate students are expected to present
their research findings to a general audience in a vivid, cogent, and jargon-free style using a single static
slide within three minutes.
The first-round video submissions of the competition were in January 2023, and as the results were
announced in February 2023, Helani was selected as one of the 10 finalists for the URI Three Minute
Thesis competition. In the University-Wide Finals which was held on March 21, 2024, she successfully
competed with her fellow finalists of different research areas and won the 2024 People’s Choice Winner
with a prize.
Helani graduated from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science Degree
Specialized in Physics. As a student who learned Biology, Physics and Chemistry for her A/L Education,
upon her successfully completion of the degree she realized that she wanted to pursue a PhD in areas that touch Biophysics, Optics targeting to enhance her experimental research experience. As the result, she started her PhD journey in 2019 at the University of Rhode Island, USA. Currently she is studying the
phonon dynamics of technologically important materials. She wishes to expand her experiments to study
biological samples along with the ongoing research work. Apart from that, currently she plays the role of
the secretary of the Graduate Student Association (GSA) of the University of Rhode Island as well as
serving to the GSA community services committee engaging Graduate students in extracurricular
activities. Her hope is to empower women in STEM, and to make a sustainable discovery in Physics with
the thought of making the world a better place.
