UB Provost Charles Zukoski (left) and mechanical and aerospace engineering PhD student Philip Odonkor. Odonkor took first place in the 3MT competition.
by Jane Stoyle Welch
Published March 27, 2018 This content is archived.
Philip Odonkor has always been intrigued by the idea of distilling complex thoughts into short, captivating narratives. When he heard about UB’s 3 Minute Thesis competition, this avid fan of TED talks jumped at the chance to participate.
Odonkor earned the $1,000 top prize in this year’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition for his presentation titled “Is Your House Smarter Than a Mud Hut?” The answer, from the perspective of this PhD student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is no.
During his three minutes onstage, Odonkor explained how his research aims to change that by developing better ways to track people’s energy habits at home. His vision, he said, is the realization of net-zero energy smart buildings.
Watch Phil Odonkor's presentation on "Is your house smarter than a mud hut?".
The competition, hosted by the Graduate School and Blackstone LaunchPad, featured PhD students communicating their research to non-experts and competing to win monetary prizes up to $1,000. Since its inception in 2008 at the University of Queensland in Australia, the competition has grown to more than 600 universities in 59 countries.
Originally from Ghana, Odonkor aspires to develop energy management algorithms to discover our most innate energy habits and to use this data to better manage energy assets within our homes and offices.
After graduation, he plans to become an academic researcher in the field of energy optimization. He also holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees from UB.
The event was held on March 9, 2018. For more information, visit the Three Minute Thesis webpage on the UB Graduate School website.
In addition to Odonkor, three other students from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences were finalists in the competition.
Alok Deshpande, a PhD student in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, is studying the effects that high temperatures have on concrete walls in nuclear power plants. The title of his presentation was “Building Safer Nuclear Power Plants,” and his is advisors are Andrew Whittaker and Ravi Ranade. His future plans include conducting research in the area of earthquake engineering.
Souransu Nandi, a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is designing control algorithms for a biomedical device called the artificial pancreas. Nandi's goal is for the artificial pancreas to mimic the actions of a normal pancreas, thus enabling diabetic patients to live more freely. His presentation was entitled “Type 1 Diabetes: Dealing With Pricks,“ and his advisor is Tarun Singh. Upon graduation, he aspires to work as a full-time researcher to discover solutions that will have a large, positive impact on society.
Neeti Narayan earned a Master's degree from UB and is currently pursuing a PhD degree in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. She is working to develop systems to automatically track multiple people across multiple cameras in real time. Her work has the potential to improve the quality of surveillance and identification in cluttered scenes such as at airports and train stations. The title of her presentation was “Person Tracking for Improved Video Surveillance,” and her advisor is Venu Govindaraju. Her future plans include working as a faculty member at a university.
