The 2026 Temple University 3MT Competition was held on March 26th before a live audience and panel of judges. There were 14 participants from multiple schools and colleges, sharing their research and engaging the audience in conversations about AI, medical advancements, social media and accessibility in higher education.
The 2026 Finalists from left to right: Cheri Amor Hudson, Shelly Gupta, Joseph Johnson, Lauren Nutinsky, Steven Martinez, Maria Aguilar Walls, Kanghyun (Simon) Cho, Kristina Westover, Javad Mohammad Alizadeh, Tutun Das Aka, Shantanu Shinde, Morgan Pantuck, Doyoung Kim and Jaggar DeMarco.
2026 3MT Winners and Finalists
Name | School/College | Discipline | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
FIRST PLACE – Doyoung Kim | College of Engineering | Mechanical Engineering | Curved Surgical Needles: Why Insertion Strategies Matter |
SECOND PLACE – Kristina Westover | Boyer College of Music and Dance | Music Education | A Grounded Theory of Secondary School Music Teacher Resilience |
PEOPLE'S CHOICE – Lauren Nutinsky | College of Education and Human Development | Higher Education | Understanding First-Generation Liberal Arts Majors' Career Self-Management: A Narrative Inquiry Study |
Tutun Das Aka | College of Science and Technology | Chemistry | Forever Chemicals: Kicking Out the Uninvited Guest in Every Home |
Javad Mohammad Alizadeh | Barnett College of Public Health | Health Informatics | Develop a Digital Twin Framework for Personalized Care Planning in Chronic Disease Management (T2D) |
Kanghyun (Simon) Cho | Fox School of Business | Management Information Systems | The Role of Algorithmic Automation and Augmentation in Expert Decision-Making |
Jaggar DeMarco | Klein College of Media and Communication | Media & Communication | Disability Art as Creativity, Communication, and Critique |
Shelly Gupta | College of Science and Technology | Computer and Information Sciences | Predicting Landslides with Physics-Guided AI |
Cheri Amor Hudson | Fox School of Business | Consumer Behavior | Influencers, Risk and Disclaimers |
Joseph Johnson | College of Liberal Arts | History | Peaceful Nuclear Explosions: Project Plowshare and US Diplomacy |
Steven Martinez | College of Liberal Arts | Psychology & Neuroscience | Why We Keep Scrolling: How Novelty Drives Social Media Scrolling Behavior |
Morgan Pantuck | Lewis Katz School of Medicine | Biomedical Sciences | Glutamate Drives Stem Cell Repair in the Lung |
Shantanu Shinde | College of Engineering | Mechanical Engineering | A Smart Lens for Battery Safety |
Maria Aguilar Walls | College of Education and Human Development | Education Policy | Access and Engagement: The Experiences of Students with Physical Disabilities in Higher Education |
First place winner Doyoung Kim presenting on her topic: Curved Surgical Needles: Why Insertion Strategies Matter.