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The 2024 Three Minute Thesis final competition will be held Feb. 7, from 4 to 6 p.m.

What is the best way to distill a multitude of information into just three minutes?

That’s the question ten graduate students will be wrestling with as part of the Graduate School’s seventh annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, which will be held in the University Memorial Center’s Glenn Miller Ballroom on Feb. 7, 2024, from 4 to 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, but .

This event challenges students to explain their thesis to the general public. They are then evaluated by a panel of judges from across the university, including College of Arts and Sciences Dean Glen Krutz, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Associate Dean Charles Musgraves, Professor of Sociology Lori Hunter, and Physics Professor and Nobel Laureate Eric Cornell.

In the days leading up to the event, we’ll be featuring each of the competitors. Today’s is Saima Kazmi, a doctoral student in advertising, public relations and media design who studies sustainability and green advertising. Her 3MT presentation’s title is “Psychological Distance in Advertising and Moral Disengagement.”

If you had to describe your research in one sentence, what would you say?

Understanding why consumers resist green advertising and how designing ads a certain way can address that.

What led you to pursue your doctoral degree in your field of study?

The consumer interaction on social media fascinated me, and I wanted to carve my own path in understanding engagement and human behavior.

What is your favorite thing about the research you do?

The potential of broader social impact and future orientation of sustainability

What is your favorite food and why?

Pomegranate because they remind me of my father. He always has a big bowl of seeds ready for us when we visit.

Tell us a random fact about yourself

Getting a PhD as a parent to small kids with my husband across the Pacific is one of the hardest things I have ever done.