Samuel Sequeira
Congratulations to Samuel Sequeira, a first-year Master of Science student in Environmental Science, who won first place and the People’s Choice award in the annual Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) contest at Saint Mary’s last week. His presentation was titled “Jumping into danger: Mercury, fungus, and the frog crisis.”
Abigail Battson won second place for her thesis titled “Finding a needle in a haystack: Looking for indirect evidence of black holes in star clusters.”
Hosted by the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the 2025 3MT event saw 11 Saint Mary’s Master’s students and PhD candidates explain their thesis research projects in three minutes using just one static PowerPoint slide, no other props and no visual aids. A panel of judges chose the first and second place winners, while audience members voted for the People’s Choice Award.
Condensing a thesis—the result of months or even years of work—into three minutes is a unique challenge, and doing it effectively is an impressive feat. Competitors are challenged to condense and communicate their work while still making it accessible to a non-expert audience, with the clock ticking.
In his master’s thesis research, Samuel is studying wetlands contaminated with mercury and arsenic, specifically the effect this contamination has on amphibians. Nova Scotia has a rich history of gold mining dating back to the mid-1800s. The processes used to extract gold from its ore produced waste materials that contained mercury and arsenic. Due to the lack of regulations at the time, these waste materials, or tailings, were discarded in low-lying areas, including wetlands. These historic gold mine tailings are a risk to several organisms, including amphibians. Since they spend their lives on land and in water, amphibians are constantly being exposed to these contaminants, which they can absorb directly through their skin and their diet.
Along with supervisor Dr. Linda Campbell, Samuel and a team of student researchers are working to determine how much mercury and arsenic are accumulating in amphibians’ tissue, and its implications for their predators, including endangered species of birds, fish and turtles.
This project will also focus on whether a highly infectious fungal pathogen, which has caused the extinction of several species of frogs worldwide, has made its way to Nova Scotia.
Samuel completed his undergraduate degree at Saint Mary’s and is now enrolled in the Master of Applied Science program. He will compete in the Eastern Regional 3MT Competition hosted by Memorial University in June.
The Three-Minute Thesis presentations covered a wide range of topics from the Faculties of Arts, Science, and the Sobey School of Business:
Abigail Battson: Finding a needle in a haystack: Looking for indirect evidence of black holes in star clusters
Lily Binney: The structural complexity of old-growth Eastern Hemlock and Red Spruce forests in Nova Scotia
Gary Ernest: The interaction between leadership style and calling orientation in predicting burnout in academic vs. clinical physician leaders
Angelo George: Cosmic neighbourhoods: How environment shapes galaxies
Gabe Kipnis: Mapping and analyzing the local food network in the HRM
David Lewis: TRaP-ping Historic Mine Tailing Arsenic & Mercury
Sasha MacArthur: Beyond MRI: How SHG reveals the hidden story of collagen
Nichole Michaud-Kuszelewski": Price wars: An empirical investigation of competitive pricing
Megan O’Brien: Finding old-growth forest in Nova Scotia
Samuel Sequeira: Jumping into danger: Mercury, fungus, and the frog crisis
Alex Stokes: Exploring perceptions of citizenship and place in Prince Edward Island curriculum