If you’ve ever gone to graduate school, you’ll know how hard it is to explain your years of research in a quick and compelling way. But having a great elevator pitch in your pocket is so important – you never know who you’re going to end up meeting next, and sometimes you only have 30 seconds.

In this last semester of my degree, I challenged myself to streamline my very multi-dimensional research project into three minutes. I presented at UVic’s Three Minute Thesis competition and created this video for the SSHRC Storytellers’ Contest. Though I didn’t win, both contests were huge in helping me clarify the big picture implications and communicate the significance of my work to a general audience.

Special thanks to Kirk Schwartz and MediaNet Victoria, who made this video possible through the Activate video production program.