Eliminating infection in three minutes
One of the biggest issues in the New Zealand healthcare system is infection. This year’s Three Minute Thesis winner is hoping to eliminate it. Stephanie Croft, a PhD student from the School of Engineering, had the winning research idea which is looking at the prevention of bacterial bio-film from medical implants.
Stephanie decided to undertake this research after working in a specialist chemistry lab at Lab Plus.
“I heard about this research opportunity from one of my now supervisors and it really caught my interest. I wanted to get out of the lab and be working on providing solutions that directly help people, so I applied to AUT and was successful and now here I am.”
The Three Minute Thesis competition was the final event at the 2014 Postgraduate Symposium – an event for postgraduate researchers to discuss and present their research ideas with staff and students from around AUT.
Three Minute Thesis encourages researchers to present their research ideas to a broader audience – something that Stephanie is grateful for.
“The main thing I got out of the competition was the opportunity to make my own research clear.
After presenting my ideas to such a broad audience who were so receptive to my idea, I really did start to believe that my research is going to help people.”
When asked if she is excited about representing AUT in Perth at the Trans-Tasman competition, Stephanie smiled, saying, “I am so excited to be able to represent AUT. I hope that I will be the first winner from a university in New Zealand; that would be a great honour.”