*drumroll* Announcing the 2020 International Visualise Your Thesis Competition Winners …
Who were our 2020 winners for the Visualise Your Thesis Competition? It was fierce competition with entries from 21 universities from 5 countries internationally.
2020 marked the second year of VYT’s international competition stage. Following some very lively discussions, our judges Ginny Barbour, Deb Verhoeven and Graeme Base rose to the difficult challenge of determining the the 2020 winners.
The final verdict
Congratulations to the winners of the 2020 International Visualise Your Thesis competition, announced on Monday, 19 October, at the eResearch Australasia online conference.
🏆 1st place ($5000) – Kelly Wilson-Stewart, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), $5,000 AU
The judges said: From a simple, almost storybook opening we are taken on a clear explanatory arc to the heart of the problem – x-rays don’t behave in an orderly fashion as one might imagine – and onwards, to the accompaniment of a cannily-chosen soundtrack, to a restrained but effective emotional payoff – these are not storybook characters but real people – lending the project a sense of importance and relevance that is inescapable. The result? We WANT this project to succeed! Great communication and salesmanship for an important research project.
🥈 2nd place ($2000) – Ané van der Walt, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH), $2,000 AU
The judges said: This was just beautiful and was a well told and visually rich illustrated story itself about how to make a story. In addition, it explained well the cultural importance of the project and indeed how the atlas would have a life after the project ends.
🥉 3rd place ($1000) – Maleen Jayasuriya, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), $1,000 AU
The judges said: This grabbed immediately with its humour, engaging character and a good story – which made all the judges laugh. But there was more than humour – a clever use of animation and a mix of graphics, succinctly explained a quite complex solution for very a real world problem.
Highly commended
- Nicola Rivers, Monash University, “Everything not saved will be lost”
The judges said: An elegant and lucid explanation of species recovery technology drawing on the easily-relatable analogy of data back-up. We appreciate immediately what the problem is and are led to an equally clear grasp of the proposed solution. Deceptively simple animation gains sophistication through a limited colour palette. The choice of a stylish and highly legible font completes the picture making for an excellent communication package.
- Gwendolyn Foo, UNSW, Using Robots to Solve the World’s Fastest Growing Problem
The judges said: There was a great use of photos and images to explain the human and societal costs of waste. The editing of images and the soundtrack provided really good tension in the story, which led logically to the resolution described by the research project.
Who’s your preferred winner?
Watch all the fantastic entries and let us know which entries stood out for you. All finalists’ works were added to the Visualise Your Thesis figshare repository where the public can watch and download the creative commons-licenced videos, and the creators can gain insights into their impact through altmetrics tracking. Click the button below to watch all 21 finalists’ entries below:
About the competition
Visualise Your Thesis provides an incentivised training opportunity for graduate research students. The program develops students’ understanding of copyright, licencing, scholarly metrics, and training in digital communication and design. To find out more, visit https://sites.research.unimelb.edu.au/visualise-your-thesis/
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