Free thesis defense presentation template
Defend a master's or PhD thesis, or a final-year project in a viva: research question, gap, method, results, contributions, limitations and future work in 12 slides. Sample PhD thesis on heat and street vendors included.
What's in this template
Slide 1: Cooler stalls, safer vendors Shade in Chennai’s markets.
- A trial with 412 street vendors in 6 markets: shade cut stall heat by 4.2°C and heat symptoms by 31%.
Slide 2: Street vendors work all day in dangerous heat
- Chennai has about 1.5 lakh street vendors
- Afternoon stall temperatures often pass 40°C in May
- No one has tested what cheap shade does for them
Slide 3: What we know and the gap
- Prior work
- City heat plans can cut deaths (Hess et al., 2018)
- Outdoor workers lose most hours to heat (ILO, 2019)
- The gap
- Few studies test changes at the workplace itself
- Street vendors are missing from most heat plans
Slide 4: Research questions
- RQ1: how much does a shade canopy cool a stall?
- RQ2: does it reduce heat symptoms and lost hours?
- Hypothesis: shaded vendors report fewer symptom days
Slide 5: Methodology
- Design: trial in 6 markets, 3 shaded and 3 not
- Data: 412 vendors, sensors and weekly interviews
- Analysis: mixed-effects models of symptom days
- Ethics: approved by the university board, CU-IEC-117
Slide 6: Data at a glance
- 412 Vendors taking part
- 6 Markets across Chennai
- 4 months April to July 2025
Slide 7: Shade cooled stalls and cut symptoms by a third
- −4.2°C Stall temperature at 3 pm (RQ1)
- p < 0.01 Shaded vs unshaded markets
- −31% Days with heat symptoms (RQ2)
Slide 8: What the results mean
- RQ1: shade cooled stalls by 4°C on the hottest days
- RQ2: fewer symptom days and 1.2 fewer lost hours a week
- The cooling matches what city tree studies found
Slide 9: Contributions
- Early field trial of shade for vendors in India
- An open dataset of 9,800 stall temperature readings
- A ₹2,400 canopy design cities can copy
Slide 10: Limitations and future work
- Limitations
- One city and one summer only
- Symptoms were self-reported
- Future work
- Repeat in drier heat in Delhi and Nagpur
- Test shade together with drinking water points
Slide 11: Conclusion
- Simple shade cut stall heat by 4°C and symptoms by a third
- Cheap canopies belong in every city heat plan
- Paper under review; talk at a 2026 heat conference
Slide 12: Thank you. Questions?
- Thanks to Prof. S. Anand, my committee, the Chennai Heat Fellowship and 412 vendors
Find it in: Thesis defense presentation template