Those floor-to-ceiling gym mirrors don’t have to be an inactive woman’s worst enemy, if her personal trainer gets her to see beyond superficial appearances, says the winner of this year’s Three Minute Thesis competition.

“My research showed that women can leave the gym feeling happy, healthy and ready to return tomorrow,” graduate student Carly Cameron told the audience at Thursday’s Mapping the New Knowledges conference.

“They simply need to be reminded that, when they look in the mirror, they should be checking their form.”

Cameron says societal pressures to appear slim and beautiful may initially cause many women to be anxious when they view their reflection. But when those women use the mirror to develop correct techniques and form during exercise, that anxiety disappears.

Cameron was one of five Brock finalists in the international “Three Minute Thesis,” or 3MT competition, in which students clearly explain their research in three minutes or less.

This offers a forum for each and every graduate student to have the chance to come together, as a community, to share knowledge, to make connections and to develop and hone presentation skills in an environment that is welcoming and supportive.

Runner-up Malisa Kurtz presented her research on how science fiction reflects the way race and class are viewed in real-life situations and how science fiction can be used to bring about more equal relations in the future.

The other contestants were: Jermel Pierre “Move to Your Beat: The Effects of Self-Selected Music on Physical Activity”; Dinara Salaeva “Fathers’ Involvement in Child Development from the Identity Theory Perspective” and Anshul Sidhu “Understanding the Diamondback Moth Performance in Alternative Cropping Systems.”

Cameron will represent Brock at the 3MT provincial competition in Waterloo April 14. The top five presenters from the Ontario competition will move onto the national level, an online competition co-ordinated by the Canadian Association of Graduate Schools.

The 3MT competition was one of the highlights of Mapping the New Knowledges, a yearly conference that showcases Brock University’s graduate student research.

The daylong event featured talks and posters from nearly 120 graduate student researchers on a wide array of subjects.

“With Mapping the New Knowledges, we are doing what few other universities in Canada do,” Mike Plyley, Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, said in opening the event.

“This offers a forum for each and every graduate student to have the chance to come together, as a community, to share knowledge, to make connections and to develop and hone presentation skills in an environment that is welcoming and supportive.”

Keynote speaker David Gabriel, professor in the Department of Kinesiology, shared his own research journey while offering advice and inspiration for graduate students.

He stressed the need for grad students to focus their time and energy on their research, to “stay optimistic” and “have a good sense of humour” as they persevere in their work.

“Spend some time getting to know who you really are, what you want out of life, what your goals are, and what makes you happy,” he said, adding that decisions and actions are easier “when you’re comfortable in you own shoes.”

Also at the conference were awards recognizing leadership and mentorship in graduate student research.

Winning the Marilyn Rose Graduate Leadership Award was PhD student Julia Polyck-O’Neill. Rose was a former Faculty of Graduate Studies dean.

Two professors received Graduate Mentorship Awards: Goodman School of Business Professor Dirk DeClerq; and Faculty of Applied Health Sciences Wendy Ward.

Brock University has approximately 1,700 graduate students enrolled in 49 graduate programs.