Meet our 2021-22 3MT Finalists: Meghan Gage

Meghan Gage is a fifth-year Ph.D. student studying neuroscience. Learn more about Meghan below, and watch her Three Minute Thesis presentation, "Epilepsy: Disease Mitigation via Neuroinflammatory Pathways," on Oct. 28 at 6 p.m.

Meghan Gage

Q: What brought you to Iowa State?

A: I knew I had a strong interest in the brain and found that the program at ISU had several faculty I would be interested in working with.

Q: Describe your research in three sentences or less.

A: Epilepsy is a highly prevalent disease characterized by spontaneous and recurrent seizures. This disease, and many other neurological diseases, are characterized by neuronal excitability and neuroinflammation. In my lab, we use rodent models to target these excitability and noninflammatory pathways and have found that treatment early in the disease can reduce seizures which may one day translate to new therapeutic strategies in humans.

Q: What do you hope to gain from Three Minute Thesis?

A: I hope to gain communication skills in being able to talk about my work to an audience with a wide variety of expertise.

Q: Share a fun fact about yourself.

A: I like to travel. I once went on a 30 day road trip across the country and visited over half the states. I hope to visit more one day.

Founded at the University of Queensland, Three Minute Thesis (3MT) challenges graduate students to present their research to a non-specialist audience in three minutes or less. Iowa State's eight finalists will compete in our final competition on Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. You can watch a livestream of the event on the Graduate College's Facebook page.