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When PhD scholar Kelsey Kennedy came to UWA on exchange from the US in 2008, both she and the University became winners.

Kelsey met her boyfriend and found what she describes as a fantastic lab: the Optical + Biomedical Engineering Laboratory in the School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering.

UWA gained an enthusiastic and successful graduate student who has taken the name of UWA around the world, presenting her - and the University's - research in a winning way.

Kelsey recently won the national finals of the Three Minute Thesis competition, bringing the title and the finals back to UWA.  She is currently in London competing in the grand finals of a similar global competition, Present Around the World (PATW).

PATW is run by the Institution of Engineering and Technology.  Kelsey won her way into the grand finals after beating local, national and Asia-Pacific competitors, talking about and answering questions on her research with the ‘microscope-in-a-needle' group.

This project, which was a finalist in the Eureka Awards, aims to improve surgery for women with breast cancer by ensuring that tumours are completely removed.  One in four women who have a lumpectomy have to return for further surgery.

Kelsey's supervisors are Winthrop Professor David Sampson, Associate Professor Robert McLaughlin and Assistant Professor Brendan Kennedy (no relation).

"They all helped me with my presentations," Kelsey said. "I also had some great help from Winthrop Professor Jane Davidson in the School of Music, who taught me things I'd never thought of, such as how to make my hand gestures more thoughtful and how to perfect eye contact with the audience, which is really hard to do.

"Timing is the hardest thing: the Three Minute Thesis competition took that to the extreme. But I've always felt confident speaking in public even though I've had no formal training."

She said the real winner was her topic.

"It's so engaging, and everybody knows somebody who has had breast cancer," Kelsey said. "You just have to be careful not to promise too much, to keep your presentation in the research context."

She hopes to complete her PhD next year.