On April 9, 2025, four graduate students took home awards at The University of Texas at Austin's Empower Your Pitch competition. Three award winners were chosen by judges and will receive $1,000 while the Community Choice Award winner was selected by the audience and will receive $500. The 2025 competition included graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.
Empower Your Pitch Winners
| Cell and Molecular Biology Ph.D. candidate Lisa Wang won the Outstanding Public Engagement Award with the presentation, “Does Abnormal Touch Sensitivity Lead to Social Difficulty?” |
| Neuroscience Ph.D. candidate Cole Maguire won the Overall Excellence in Research Communication Award with the presentation, “A Dual Threat: Reactivation of Chronic Viruses in the Wake of COVID-19.” |
| Piano Performance Ph.D. student Ellen Sirower won the Outstanding Creativity Award with the presentation, “Strange, Beautiful Music: Teaching Musical Interpretation of Post-Tonal Piano Repertoire.” |
| Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery Ph.D. candidate Adwait Pradhan won the Community Choice Award for Excellence with the presentation, “Downsizing pills: can we make medicines easier to swallow?” |
This year's Empower Your Pitch consisted of three rounds of competition, with the first round including a dedicated panel of coaches to provide feedback to all contestants, helping to fine-tune pitches for subsequent rounds. After receiving and incorporating feedback, participants presented to Empower Your Pitch judges for a second time in the elimination round. Thirteen standout graduate students and postdoctoral scholars were chosen in the second round as competition finalists, advancing to a thrilling final round and celebration.
The five finalist judges included Lindsey Derrington, Executive Director at Preservation Austin, Nina Golder, Vice President at Emerson, Matthew Karch, CEO and Co-Founder at Saber Interactive, Ezinne Udezue, Principal and ProductMind and Jim Zook, Vice President of University Marketing and Communications at The University of Texas at Austin.
Graduate School Dean Sarah Ades provided opening remarks at the finale.
In collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, “Empower Your Pitch” is an invigorating redesign of the 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) format. This engaging and dynamic competition and skill-development series is designed to equip participants with the strategies needed to effectively communicate complex ideas in just three minutes. The Graduate School Office of Career and Life Design hosted several information sessions and offered resources throughout the competition to help students practice and refine their presentations.
This campus-wide research communication competition is co-sponsored by The Graduate School Office of Career and Life Design and the Graduate Coordinators Network.