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Two doctoral students from the University of Maryland’s Department of Mechanical Engineering landed awards during the final round of the Graduate School’s Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition on April 15.
Michael Bonthron and Adira Colton were among the six award winners at the competition, which tests students’ abilities to present complex research topics effectively to a non-specialist audience. They were selected from among 20 finalists.
Bonthron conducts research in the Tubaldi Lab and is advised by its director, Assistant Professor Eleonora Tubaldi, while Colton is affiliated with Associate Professor Ryan Sochol’s Bioinspired Advanced Manufacturing Lab. In addition to their primary faculty appointments in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sochol is also a Fellow at the Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices, while Tubaldi is a faculty affiliate at the institute.
Engineering Responsive Structures With Metamaterials
In his thesis, Built to Change: Designing Structures to Adapt to Our Needs, Bonthron presents an approach to engineering mechanical structures that can alter their own properties to optimize performance as conditions and demands change—in Bonthron’s words, they can be “flexible when we want them to be, but rigid and protective when we need them to be.” Examples might include a bike helmet that fits flexibly and comfortably on the rider’s head but stiffens to absorb the impact of a crash, airplanes whose wings change shape depending on altitude, and wind turbine blades that self-strengthen during gusts. The key to such wizardry is the use of metamaterials, which are materials designed with specific geometric configurations that cause them to behave in novel ways. At the Tubaldi Lab, Bonthron designs and builds structures that are composed of tiny, repeated mechanical elements—like a Lego set that can be built in millions of possible ways. Unlike Legos, the elements are not rigid and locked into place, but rather can be rapidly reconfigured, producing a new set of mechanical properties.
Bonthron, who plans to wrap up his doctorate next year and is already thinking ahead to the career search, says he entered the competition in order to hone his skills at succinct presentation.
“At career fairs, you meet recruiters who understand company needs and want a broad overview of your research and its impact—the so-called ‘elevator speech’,” he said. “It’s a way to get your foot in the door, allowing you to go into more detail in follow-up conversations.”
A Breakthrough in Microneedle Fabrication
Colton’s thesis, Improving Biomedical Research Through 3D-Printed Glass Microneedles, focuses on a novel approach to fabricating a tool that is used in applications ranging from gene editing to cancer research. Microneedless—tiny glass needles with a diameter of as little as 15 microns—are made by hand in the lab, and inconsistencies can result from human error. They are also subject to clogging due to debris in the liquid being delivered, or because material gets stuck in the tip. To prevent this, the BAM lab has developed a new microneedle design that features a solid point and holes on the side. Colton and other BAM researchers have been using Direct Laser Writing, a form of 3D microprinting, to fabricate these new needles, which are hard to manufacture with conventional means.
DLW has generally been used with polymers, but Colton was able to apply it to glass microneedles by utilizing a newer methodology. She then tested the nanoprinted needles by using them to deliver gene-editing CRISPR to more than 200 zebrafish embryos, with superior performance compared to conventional microneedles. Colton’s approach can be used with other glass microtools, potentially opening the door for across-the-board improvements.
“I entered the 3MT competition because I thought it would be a fun experience and help me develop science communication skills,” said Colton, who is defending her thesis this May. “I feel very honored to have been selected as a winner and proud of myself for distilling 5 years of engineering research into 3 minutes that resonated with the judges.”
“I look forward to applying the science communication skills I developed for 3MT this upcoming Fall when I start my IEEE Congressional Science and Technology Policy fellowship, where I’ll be advising lawmakers on Capitol Hill,” she said.
While mechanical engineers took the top spots this year, other graduate students from the A. James Clark School of Engineering were selected as finalists. They include Charlie Fisher (electrical and computer engineering), Nayib Rashid (electrical and computer engineering), Sydney Overton (electrical and computer engineering), and Raziq Zaman (civil and environmental engineering).
April 29, 2026
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