Lamia Dawood, a student in Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Administration and Leadership doctoral program from Indiana; Abdul Jones, a student in the applied archaeology master’s program from Philadelphia; and Amar Mmoud, a student in the Curriculum and Instruction doctoral program from Indiana, were selected as finalists for IUP’s 2026 Three Minute Thesis competition.
Held during IUP’s annual Research Appreciation Week April 6 to 10, the annual Three Minute Thesis competition is an event for graduate students to present their original scholarship to a panel of judges in just three minutes with the aid of only one static PowerPoint slide as a visual aid. This international program has been part of IUP’s Research Appreciation Week for more than a decade. Students must apply to be chosen for the competition.
Lamia Dawood
Abdul Jones
Amar Mmoud
Dawood presented “The Culture of Resettling Lives,” Jones presented “Brown’s Farm: A 19th and 20th Century African American Farmstead,” and Mmoud presented “College Students’ Expectations from Their Instructors in Today’s Classroom.” Mmoud won the judge’s award, and Jones won the people’s choice award.
Dawood’s faculty mentor for her Three Minute Thesis research is Distinguished University Professor of Sociology Daniel Heckert.
Dawood works as a tutor for IUP’s Office of International Education and is a proctor for IUP’s Department for Disability Access and Advising. She is the recipient of an AAUW Indiana Scholarship and a graduate school scholarship. She won best poster at the 2023 and 2025 Scholars Forum.
In addition to her presentation during Three Minute Thesis competition, she presented “Settled, Unsettled, Resettled” during the scholars forum poster session and was a co-presenter for two podium presentations during the scholars forum: “Graduate Writers in the Digital Age: Navigating Reddit for Academic Writing” and “Muslin Mothering as a Site of Resistance and Empowerment: An Autoethnographic Study.” Her faculty mentor for the “Graduate Writers in the Digital Age: Navigating Reddit for Academic Writing” is Dana Driscoll, Department of Language, Literature, and Writing; and her faculty mentor for “Muslin Mothering as a Site of Resistance and Empowerment: An Autoethnographic Study” is Gloria Park, Department of Language, Literature and Writing and director of IUP’s Graduate Studies in Composition and Applied Linguistics.
Jones, a 2014 graduate of Mathematics Civics and Science Charter School, won first place in the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology student paper competition and won the Mike Klein Memorial Poster Competition at the Middle Atlantic Archeological Conference.
Jones also presented his research during the Scholars Forum poster session. His faculty mentor is Distinguished University Professor Ben Ford.
Mmoud is a teaching associate at IUP and participated in the 2024 Scholars Forum. His faculty mentor for his project is Jacqueline McGinty from the Department of Professional Studies in Education.
In 2022, IUP was designated as a Doctoral University-High Research Activity (R2) by the National Center for Postsecondary Research’s Carnegie Classification in recognition of its commitment to research and student success; this ranking was reaffirmed in February 2025.
IUP is one of only two public universities in Pennsylvania and one of only 97 public universities with this ranking in the United States. More than 3,900 colleges and universities are included in the ranking system.
Since its founding in 1875, IUP has evolved from a teacher-training institution into a doctoral research university recognized for its commitment to student success and achievement. As IUP celebrates its 150th anniversary during the 2025–26 academic year and through the Impact 150 comprehensive campaign, the university honors a legacy of educational excellence while looking to its next 150 years of student success, innovation, leadership in healthcare education, and public service.