Three-Minute Thesis Challenge

2025 THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE

JUNE 23, 2025 | 2:30 P.M.
Louisville, KY

Submission deadline Thursday, June 5, at 11:59 pm CST

Rules and Judging Criteria

ADSA graduate students are encouraged to participate in the return of the Three-Minute Thesis Challenge. This event will test the competitors' ability to convey their research in a way that is compelling and understandable to all, in three minutes or less! Emphasis will be placed on the ability to explain research to a lay (broader) audience.

Entry details will be released prior to the annual meeting, and competition will be limited to 10 students selected by a panel of judges based upon strength of CV and a 300-word interpretive summary.

All ADSA members are invited to attend the challenge and watch students compete for cash prizes and present their research in a fun and exciting way!

To submit your entry, please see the instructions listed here.

THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE Recordings

2025 Three Minute Thesis Challenge

First Place - Savitha Saikumar

Second Place - Viro Shukla

Third Place - Gaurav Dutta

Ana Beatriz Montevecchio

Giovanna Meli

Muhammad Azeem Ur Rehman Alvi

Suchismita Roy

2022 THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE

FIRST PLACE: Bhaswati Chowdhury

SECOND PLACE: Kritika Gaba

THIRD PLACE: Patrick Tai

PEOPLE'S CHOICE WINNER: Usman Arshad

2021 THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE

FIRST PLACE: SHEETAL JHA

Bio-sanitizer of Natural Origin for Dairy Industry

Bio: Sheetal Jha is a current graduate research assistant under the mentorship of Dr. Sanjeev Anand at the Dairy and Food Science Department, South Dakota State University. Her research focuses on formulating a natural antimicrobial to effectively clean the resilient biofilms on the separation membranes in the dairy industry.

SECOND PLACE: GABRIEL DALLAGO

Long Live the Cow: A machine learning approach to analyze the welfare, longevity, profitability, and productivity of dairy cows

THIRD PLACE: SHAYANTI MINJ

Probiotics loaded whey protein encapsulants offer new applications for healthful dairy products market

PEOPLE'S CHOICE: GABRIEL DALLAGO

Long Live the Cow: A machine learning approach to analyze the welfare, longevity, profitability, and productivity of dairy cows

PARI BAKER

KRITIKA GABA

RATUL KALITA

QUINN KOLAR

CONNOR MCCABE

HIRAN RANAWEERA

JENNA WILLIAMSON

2020 THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE

FIRST PLACE: ELLEN LAI

Why are Cows So Lame?

SECOND PLACE: TANYA MURATORI

Health, Wellbeing, and Production: Where does Telomere Length Contribute?

THIRD PLACE: MEGAN LAUBER

Grab Your Watch, You Don’t Want to be Late: Timing of AI with Sexed Semen

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD: FELIPE PADUA

How to Reduce the Negative Effects of Regrouping?

LINDA BECKETT

Maintaining Milk Production: 'Omics Analysis Reveals Protein Turnover as Another Key Criteria

FABIANA CARDOSO

Is Bacteria Affecting Your Drinks?

MIKAELA FRINGER

Additives Everywhere

SIOBHAN MELLORS

Tackling the Age Old Question: Whole Milk or Milk Replacer

CARLYN PETERSON

The Power of Poop: Can Cattle Solve the Climate Crisis?

SONALI RAGHUNATH

I Let the Protein Dance Again!

2019 THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE

FIRST PLACE: SAM ROWE

Antibiotic Stewardship and Dry Cow Therapy

SECOND PLACE: AMANDA LEE

How Many Cows Can an Automatic Milking System Handle?

THIRD PLACE: KATIE KELLY

Diets and Distractions

MARYAM ENTESHARI

Lactose journey towards valorization

ANNA HAWKINS

Raising Heifers: Costly But Critical

CONOR MCCABE

What if Cows Were Jet Lagged Every Three Days?

SHAYANTI MINI

Encapsulated whey-probiotics; as a dietary deliverable

KAAVYA RATHNAKUMAR

Introducing Smart solvents in Dairy manufacturing

PRATISHTHA VERMA

A natural antimicrobial as a potential dairy membrane sanitizer

MAHMOUD ZAYDA

MRSA in DAIRY-world WH? is GUILTY

2018 THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE

FIRST PLACE: GUSTAVO MAZON

Would you wear your Fitbit in a buffet?

SECOND PLACE: KAYLA ALWARD

The big whoop about Anti-Mullerian Hormone

THIRD PLACE: KATHERINE KENNEDY

Liver energy status and feeding behavior in dairy cows during the transition period

NANCY AWASTI

Evaluation of powder processing parameters on population dynamics of Bacilluslicheniformis strains using response surface methodology and contour plots

PRATIBHA CHAUDHARY

Hydrodynamic Cavitation as a novel technique to reduce sporeforming bacteria in milk

MARYAM ENTESHARI

How to look at dairy wastewater not as a burden but rather as a profit?

ANNA HAWKINS

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

ALLISON LAWTON

The counterintuitive approach of draining calcium reserves for improved health at calving

MAURICIO XAVIER DA SILVA OLIVEIRA

Is the lack of neutrophils the bottleneck to avoid mastitis occurrence in early lactation?

2017 THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE

FIRST PLACE: JENNIFER SPENCER

Aspirin: For aches and pains, and reproduction?   

SECOND PLACE: VICTORIA COUTURE

Making the Connections: Mastitis and Behavior

THIRD PLACE: NEHA NEHA

Listeria control on ice cream, based on response surface modeling

FOURTH PLACE: HANNAH BAILEY

Qualitative analysis of forage mixtures designed for Southeastern USA organic dairy production

FIFTH PLACE: ANNE-MARIEKE SMID

Outdoor access for dairy cows- letting cows vote with their feet!

ASHENAFI BEYI

Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, this presentation was not recorded.

Application of Nearest Neighbor Methods to Support Dairy Cow Replacement Decisions

BRITTANY CASPERSON

Corn Stover, feed efficiency, and food security

AUNG HTUN

Improvement of health status via increased passive immunoglobulin G transfer by non-digestible saccharides in calves

RESHALAITHAN MAIMAITI

Effect of parity on feed intake of dairy cows soon after calving

DIPAK MEHTA

Influence of spore-forming Bacilli as a quality deteriorative microorganism in cultured dairy products

VENKAT SUNKESULA

Feasibility of soluble soybean polysaccharide for enhancing lactose crystallization during lactose manufacture

2016 THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE

FIRST PLACE: ANDY LEE

The influence of ultra-pasteurization by indirect and direct steam injection processing on sensory perception of skim and 2% fat milks

SECOND PLACE (TIE): MELISSA BAINBRIDGE

Optimizing milk's bioactive fatty acid content for human health

SECOND PLACE (TIE): LAUREN MAYO

Efficacy and development of early chemical pregnancy diagnosis methods in dairy cattle

THIRD PLACE: JEFFREY KAUFMAN

Feeding a low crude protein diet sustains milk production in lactating dairy cows during summer months

JOSE DENIS-ROBICHAUD

Does using automated activity monitoring (AAM) improve reproductive performance over timed artificial insemination

DIPAKKUMAR MEHTA

Optimization of formula for the development of convenient grab-to-go breakfast smoothie

RICARDO RODRIGUES

Development of a model to study mammary gland function during heat stress

2015 THREE-MINUTE THESIS CHALLENGE

FIRST PLACE: JANNA MOATS

Extruded flaxseed products to improve the nutritional value of cow's milk

SECOND PLACE: MELISSA WOOLPERT

Milk's fatty acid fingerprint: the dairy management tool of the future

THIRD PLACE: KARMELLA DOLECHECK

Rethinking reproduction

FOURTH PLACE (TIE): MAC CAMPBELL

Overcrowding: Walking the Tightrope of Cow Well-Being

FOURTH PLACE (TIE): LEE CADESKY

Functional changes to milk proteins induced by high hydrostatic pressure

KATHERINE (KATIE) BOESCHE

Preventing the negative outcomes of negative energy balance: the relationship between fatty acid metabolism and pyruvate carboxylase

ABIGAIL (GALE) CARPENTER

Dairy cattle and anti-inflammatory drugs

TAYLOR YOHE

Identification and characterization of potential rumen stem cells