At the end of a masterful finale, in which the excellence of the performances was unanimously praised by a captivated audience, Stella Ville, a UGA doctoral student at the Doctoral School of Languages, Literatures, and Humanities and at the Research Laboratory in Linguistics and the Teaching of Foreign and Native Languages (LIDILEM – UGA), won first prize from the jury and also won over the audience. Nour Chiboub, a USMB doctoral student at the Doctoral School of Cultures, Societies, and Territories and at the Interuniversity Laboratory of Psychology: Personality, Cognition, and Social Change (LIP/PC2S - UGA/USMB), was awarded the jury’s second prize. Finally, Alexandre Pellet, a UGA doctoral student at the Doctoral School of Engineering—Materials, Mechanics, Environment, Energy, Processes, and Production—and at the Institute of Environmental Geosciences (IGE - CNRS/INRAE/IRD/UGA – Grenoble INP-UGA) took third place and will represent the Grenoble Academy alongside Stella and Nour at the regional finals on April 28 in Clermont-Ferrand.
To the delight of an audience as enthusiastic as ever, the finalists rose to the challenge of condensing years of complex research into exactly three minutes and making it as accessible as possible by illustrating their work with surprising metaphors and unexpected comparisons. Between presentations, UGA’s talented student artists enlivened the evening with dynamic, spectacular, and high-quality interludes. Together, they thrilled more than 900 people in the stunning setting of the MC2: Grenoble Auditorium, as well as more than 1,400 viewers on YouTube.
Whether the topic was health (preventing burnout among healthcare workers, contrast agents in oncology, interstitial fluid monitoring), cutting-edge technologies (sodium-ion batteries, 3D imaging, wireless power transfer), or the mysteries of the universe (dust in protoplanetary disks, single-photon sources), the topics covered captivated the audience.
From climate change issues (forest dynamics, snow creep) to understanding human behavior (English prosody, the multisensory nature of creativity, mechanisms of speech), the 16 finalists offered a striking glimpse into the diversity and excellence of the research conducted in the laboratories of the Grenoble Academy.
It turns out that Stella Ville, a doctoral student at UGA, whom the jury and the audience named the evening’s grand prize winner for her dissertation titled “Between Accents: Raising Awareness of English Prosody Among Spanish-Speaking Adults.”
Nour Chiboub, a doctoral student at USMB, won the jury’s second prize for his dissertation topic: “Preventing Burnout and Promoting Mental Health Among Healthcare Workers at the Grenoble Alpes University Hospital (CHUGA) of the CH Métropole Savoie (CHMS): Cognitive-Behavioral Stress Management (CBSM) Intervention.”
Alexandre Pellet, a doctoral student at UGA, also impressed the jury by placing third with his topic: “Modeling the interaction between creep-induced snow and structures in the context of climate change.”
Since Stella won first prize and the audience choice award, the three jury prize winners will advance to the next round of the competition. We have no doubt that they will be formidable competitors at the regional final on April 28 in Clermont-Ferrand and then—we hope—at the national final on May 28 in Lille! The audience, thoroughly charmed, will continue to support them as their journey continues.
For the second consecutive year, the UGA invited high schools in the Grenoble school district to share in the MT180 experience through the presentation of a High School Student Award. This initiative is open to 11th- and 12th-grade classes. The presentations by doctoral students serve as valuable educational tools for helping students practice public speaking, particularly in preparation for the “Grand Oral” component of the Baccalaureate exam. An evaluation grid is provided to each teacher in the “High School Students’ Award” kit to help students analyze the presentations and identify the characteristics of effective public speaking.
Following a particularly successful first edition, the event has once again been a great success this year, with more than 3,800 students in their junior and senior years (56% of whom are girls) spread across 151 classes in 45 schools—representing 35% of the high schools in the Grenoble school district (5 schools in Ardèche, 6 in Drôme, 13 in Isère, 9 in Savoie, and 12 in Haute-Savoie).
By showcasing the work of doctoral students at UGA and USMB, MT180 also serves as an important opportunity to illustrate to high school students the diversity of higher education pathways and to give them a glimpse into the world of scientific research.
| 03/02 | USMB Preselection |
| 12/02 | UGA Preselection |
| 17/03 | Grenoble Academy Finals at the MC2: Grenoble |
| 28/04 | AuRA Regional Finals at the Hôtel de Région in Clermont-Ferrand |
| 28/05 | National finals at the Théâtre Sébastopol in Lille |
