CCEE Ph.D. student Leah Weaver won second place in the 9th Annual Three Minute Thesis competition hosted by the Graduate School.

First held at The University of Queensland in 2008, the 3MT competition celebrates the exciting research being conducted at universities worldwide and seeks to cultivate students’ academic, presentation, and research communication skills.

Weaver competed against ten NC State graduate students on Monday, November 6, at Duke Energy Hall in Hunt Library. The ten finalists represented four colleges at NC State. The competition was attended by dozens of colleagues, students, and community members. Weaver received a $750 cash prize for placing second. John van Schaik (Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering) won first place, and Prottasha Sarker (Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering)  won the “People’s Choice” award.

Weaver, advised by Assistant Professor Tarek Aziz, is giving a talk titled “Fantastic Fungi: Improving Stormwater Quality with Mycoremediation.”

Her dissertation research is focused on answering the question, “Can we sustainably remove hydrophilic pesticides from stormwater systems using fungal bioremediation?” While the fungus Phanerodontia chrysosporium was able to degrade imidacloprid in stormwater batch reactors, Weaver is currently working to evaluate whether this degradation remains feasible under realistic environmental conditions for stormwater infrastructure, such as bioretention cells. Additionally, Weaver is evaluating other bioretention cell amendment alternatives through a life cycle assessment.

Watch Weaver’s 3MT presentation here.