Smrithan Ravichandran, Chemical Physics Ph.D. Candidate, is representing the University of Maryland in the international Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Video Competition.
Vote now to help him win the People's Choice Award! Voting closes January 7, 2026.
Hosted by Universitas 21 (U21), an international network of research universities, this competition challenges doctoral students to communicate the significance of their research to a broad audience in just three minutes.
Smrithan’s 3MT presentation explores the mysteries of outer space using the world's most powerful lasers.
When describing his research, Smrithan explains that the world’s most powerful lasers “enable unprecedented explorations of a variety of phenomena, including fundamental properties of the pure vacuum that forms most of our universe.” He shares that several challenges remain in making these measurements possible.
His research addresses these challenges by “studying electrons ripped out, and subsequently expelled, by a focused laser pulse from the residual gas inside a vacuum chamber. These electrons carry rich information about the extreme conditions within the laser focus, information that is critical for effectively harnessing these powerful lasers to answer fundamental questions about our universe.”
Beyond his research, Smrithan is a committed science advocate. On his Instagram account, @ama_physicist, he invites anyone to submit questions to him about physics, emphasizing that there’s “no such thing as a bad question.” He encourages curiosity of all levels, offers answers in English or Tamil, and works to provide, or source, answers to make physics more accessible to a broad audience.