Eleanor Marsden, a part-time postgraduate researcher, reached the national semi-finals of the Vitae 3MT® Competition with her presentation 'Can writing short stories support recovery from PTSD?’
After winning the University of Winchester internal competition, where her talk was both judges' and the audience choice, Eleanor went through to the national quarter-finals where a panel of academic judges then selected the entrants for the next round.
Her entry was one of just a dozen selected for the semi-finals from more than 60 submissions.
Eleanor said it has been a privilege to represent Winchester on the national stage and that she had enjoyed the challenge of summing up her research in less time than it takes to boil an egg.
“It was such an interesting experience and a real challenge to distil my thesis into three minutes, making sure it remained academically rigorous but suitable for a wider audience at the same time,” said Eleanor.
In addition to her work as a freelance charity consultant, Eleanor, who has BA and MA in English Literature from The University of Southampton, has won awards for her short fiction and poetry, and has been published both online and in anthologies.
Eleanor’s research stems from her experience of recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and her interest in exploring writing as a therapeutic process. Ultimately, she hopes to “open the door to method which others navigating PTSD will also find healing”.
Dr Carlos De Luna Lopez, Head of Winchester’s Doctoral School, said: “Eleanor has done a fantastic job in representing the University of Winchester in a very competitive contest. The 3MT is an international annual competition and reaching the semifinals of the UK’s version is an outstanding achievement. The Postgraduate Research community at Winchester is proud of her performance.”
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