Doctoral student Michelle Janusz, the first member of the community to advance this far in this science-communication competition, shares her creative process for captivating the public.
Michelle Janusz, a PhD student in electrical engineering at Université Laval, won second place at the national finals of the Three Minute Thesis competition, the English-language counterpart of Ma thèse en 180 secondes. The event, organized by the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies, was held on November 6 in Ottawa.
This achievement qualifies her for the North American grand finale, which will take place in Washington, D.C., on December 6 as part of the annual Council of Graduate Schools conference. She is the first Université Laval contestant ever to reach this stage of the competition.
Her presentation, titled “Silencing the Alarm: A New Approach to Chronic Pain,” compares chronic pain signals to a faulty alarm system. In it, she explains her project: an implant that uses light to activate and deactivate specific nerves in the spinal cord to stop the transmission of pain signals.
