Micke Reynders, an MSc student in Chemistry, won the UP ‘Visualize your Thesis’ competition for the best one-minute audio-video presentation in 2022.

As a result of her win, she represented South Africa with Letacia Senake from UJ online at the international Visualize Your Thesis Competition (VYT) held annually at the eResearch Australasia Conference, organised by the University of Melbourne.

This competition formed part of the Department of Research and Innovation’s postgraduate research day, where students shared their research on driving sustainable solutions for global change.

Micke’s one-minute VYT video is about incorporating a systems thinking approach in chemistry to equip students with the necessary skills to be better prepared to deal with the complexity of global sustainability challenges. She invented systems thinking intervention to scaffold the development of systems thinking skills and a sustainable action perspective in first-year chemistry students. Her video titled: ‘Effectiveness of systems thinking visualisation tool for first-year chemistry can be seen here or https://t.co/znlaFUowqh

“I did not expect my video to win the local competition as the other VYT videos were of such high standard. For my video to win at the International Competition, her video must have received the most views. The video received much attention as it was ranked in the top 25% of over 22 million research outputs that have ever been tracked,” she explained.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to share my research with the world. I want to thank my supervisor Prof Lynne Pilcher and her co-supervisor, Prof Marietjie Potgieter, for all their support throughout the two years of my MSc, Micke concluded.”