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21 October 2020 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Supplied
Monique Tangah (Economic and Management Sciences Faculty) won the PhD category of UFS Institutional Three-Minute Thesis competition hosted by the Postgraduate School.

Monique Tangah, a postgraduate student from the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), will represent the university on 13 November 2020 at the National Three-Minute Thesis, also known as the ‘3MT’, competition after she won the UFS competition. 

The UFS Postgraduate School hosted its Institutional 3MT on 9 October 2020 and winners chosen from each faculty competed against each other for the UFS Three-Minute Thesis title. Tangah, with her thesis titled, Cameroonian women’s empowerment through higher education: An African-feminist and Capability Approach Analysis, emerged victorious from a total of 20 students who are registered for their PhD and master's degrees. Tensions were high as the participants brought their research products of a very high standard forward in the virtual competition.

Willard Morgan, a student in the Faculty of Education, won the category for the Master’s Degree students with his title, Ideological representations of entrepreneurship in high school economic and management sciences textbooks.

The Three-Minute Thesis competition is an annual competition held at 200 universities across the world. It is open to PhD and master's students and challenges participants to present their research in just 180 seconds – in a way that is understood by an audience with no background in their specific research area.

Universities need to focus on the generation of new knowledge to solve critical problems in the country, continent and globally. The Three-Minute Thesis competition aims to achieve this by encouraging the increase of research output produced by master’s and PhD students. 


Winners and runners-up of the UFS competition for 2020 are:

For the PhD category
Winner: Monique Tangah (Economic and Management Sciences Faculty)
1st runner-up: Tamson Foster (Natural and Agricultural Sciences Faculty)
2nd runner-up: Monique Basson (Humanities)

For the Master’s category
Winner: Willard Morgan (Education)
1st runner-up: Kyla Dooley (Natural and Agricultural Sciences Faculty)
2nd runner-up: Bonolo Makhalemele (Natural and Agricultural Sciences Faculty)

The National Three-Minute thesis will be hosted virtually on 13 November 2020. PhD finalists from South African universities will compete for the 3MT SA title. Whose research thesis will stand the test of time? Join to find out.

Date: 13 November 2020
Time: 10:00-13:00

For more information, email Reabetswe Mabine at mabiner@ufs.ac.za

News Archive

UFS academic appointed to prestigious academy (ASSAf)
2014-10-07

Another academic of the University of the Free State (UFS), Prof Jeanet Conradie, professor in Chemistry, was invited as newly elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).Science and research, by which new concepts are discovered, is her great passion.

Her PhD degree in Chemistry, together with also a strong background in Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, influenced Prof Conradie’s choice of research interest and expertise to develop gradually in the direction of computational chemistry, which is a beautiful combination of chemistry and physics.

Computational chemistry uses quantum physical principles and mathematical methods to solve chemistry problems via high-performance computerised calculations. Results obtained can be used to predict and understand the behaviour of atoms and molecules in the real world. Chemical reactions and phenomena that are impossible or too dangerous to study experimentally, can also be studied by computational chemistry. Her research team also does experimental laboratory work to combine and compare with the computational analysis. Based on these results, new materials with specific properties are developed.

The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) aspires to be the apex organisation for science and scholarship in South Africa, recognised and connected both nationally and internationally. Through its membership which represents the collective voice of the most active scholars in all fields of scholarly enquiry, ASSAf aims to generate evidence-based solutions to national problems.

Prof Corli Witthuhn: Vice-Rector: Research at the UFS said: “The UFS is very proud of Prof Conradie, who is also the first female professor in the Department of Chemistry.  Jeanet is a highly productive researcher publishing in high-impact journals.  She has extensive international networks and collaborations, increasing the impact of her work even more.  We are currently awaiting the outcome of her application for NRF rating and believe that she will receive an excellent rating.”


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