Taylor Neumann Wins the Three-Minute Thesis People’s Choice Award

Graduate Student Taylor Neumann
Graduate Student Taylor Neumann

Graduate student Taylor Neumann was the People’s Choice Award winner at this year’s Three Minute Thesis competition.

His talk, From Body Heat to Electricity, describes the focus of his research. The work involves utilizing metals which have low melting points and are liquids at room temperature to develop soft and stretchable circuitry. In particular, he used these materials to make flexible energy harvesters which capture body heat to produce electrical power.

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) is an international research communication competition that’s designed to challenge Ph.D. students to present a compelling oration on their thesis topic and its significance in just three minutes. The competition was started in 2008 at the University of Queensland, Australia, and has since spread to more than 600 universities in 65 countries around the world. The 10 finalists who competed in the NCSU competition were chosen from among 25 preliminary contestants.

Taylor, a member of Dr. Michael Dickey’s research group, is a 5th year Ph.D. student. He graduated from Auburn University and entered the CBE graduate program in 2015. Outside of the lab, he can often be found on the Intramural fields, playing music, or honing his woodworking skills. His images “Liquid Metal Sunset” and “Liquid Metal Rain” won First Place and Runner Up awards, respectively, in this year’s Envisioning Research competition.

Congratulations Taylor!