The "Dance Your Ph.D." Contest 2010

In the CHEMISTRY category, David Odde dances his PhD, “Microtubule Catastrophe in Living Cells.”

Here is Odde’s explanation of his dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Shiori Oshima dances her PhD, “Analysis of Red Blood Cell and Photon Interaction for Noninvasive Thrombus Prevention.”

Here is Oshima’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Alejandra Rangel dances her PhD, “Enhanced Susceptibility of PrPc Knockout mice against Kainate.”

Here is Rangel’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Jenny Anderson dances her PhD, “Using phosphoproteomics to define cell signaling networks modulated by EWS/FLI1 and IGF-I in Ewing’s family tumors.”

Here is Anderson’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Jennifer Whitesell dances her PhD, “Mechanisms of lateral inhibition between olfactory bulb glomeruli.”

Here is Whitesell’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Radoslaw Lach dances his PhD, “Synthetic lethality screen for anti-cancer treatment.”

Here is Lach’s explanation of his dance.

In the SOCIAL SCIENCES category, Fuad Elhage dances his PhD, “Dance as a vehicle for prejudice reduction and second language acquisition.”

Here is Elhage’s explanation of his dance.

In the CHEMISTRY category, Rubenier Montano dances his PhD, “An Iron Cluster as an Electron Acceptor for Photovoltaic Cells.”

Here is Montano’s explanation of his dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Nichola Hawkins dances her PhD, “Recent evolution of Rhynchosporium secalis populations in response to selection by fungicides.”

Here is Hawkins’ explanation of her dance.

In the PHYSICS category, Charlisa Daniels dances her PhD, “Measuring Surface Interactions using Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy.”

Here is Daniels’ explanation of her dance.

In the CHEMISTRY category, Ramiro Barrantes-Reynolds dances his PhD, “Use of Shifts in Amino Acid Frequency or Substitution Rate to Identify Latent Structural Characters in Base-Excision Repair Enzymes.”

Here is Barrantes-Reynolds’s explanation of his dance.

In the CHEMISTRY category, Kerstin Wagner dances her PhD, “Lipid Membrane Structure.”

Here is Wagner’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Christin Murphy dances her PhD, “Hydrodynamic Trail Following in a Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina).”

Here is Murphy’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Mia Lowden dances her PhD, “Genesis of End-to-End Chromosome Fusions.”

Here is Lowden’s explanation of her dance.

In the SOCIAL SCIENCES category, Jamie Hurst dances her PhD, “The Development of Adolescent Autonomy: Contributions of the Mother-Child Attachment Relationship and Maternal Sensitivity.”

Here is Hurst’s explanation of her dance.

In the SOCIAL SCIENCES category, Felice Le dances her PhD, “Estimating Causal Effects of a High School Degree on Health.”

Here is Le’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Julie Martellini dances her PhD, “Cationic antimicrobial peptides derived from human seminal plasma inhibit HIV-1 infection.”

Here is Martellini’s explanation of her dance.

In the PHYSICS category, Irwin Singer dances his PhD, “Generation and Detection of High-Energy Phonons by Superconducting Junctions.”

Here is Singer’s explanation of his dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Elicia Grace dances her PhD, “TraR may increase survival during stress and conjugation.”

Here is Grace’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Masha Kon dances his PhD, “Chaperone mediated autophagy in disease.”

Here is Kon’s explanation of his dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Maude David dances her PhD, “Bacterial adaptation to chlorinated compounds.”

Here is David’s explanation of her dance.

In the CHEMISTRY category, Lara Rajeev dances her PhD, “Mechanism of Integration of NBU1, a Bacteroides mobilizable transposon.”

Here is Rajeev’s explanation of her dance.

In the SOCIAL SCIENCES category, Maria Dittrich dances her PhD, “Coming Out to Parents: Parental Trust and Solidarity Among Only Children and Non-Only Children.”

Here is Dittrich’s explanation of her dance.

In the CHEMISTRY category, Andy Wowor dances his PhD, “DNA Structural Selectivity of Binding by the Pol I DNA Polymerases from Escherichia coli and Thermus aquaticus.”

Here is Wowor’s explanation of his dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Leo Kenefic dances his PhD, “Genetic Diversity of Bacillus anthracis in North America.”

Here is Kenefic’s explanation of his dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Rupsha Fraser dances her PhD, “The role of decidual natural (dNK cells) in pregnancy.”

Here is Fraser’s explanation of her dance.

In the CHEMISTRY category, Maureen McKeague dances her PhD, “Selection of a DNA aptamer for homocysteine using Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment.”

Here is McKeague’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Rebecca Dean dances her PhD, “Male ageing and sexual conflict in the feral fowl.”

Here is Dean’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Donatas Noreika dances his PhD, “Temporal features of binocular rivalry.”

Here is Noreika’s explanation of his dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Daria Neidre dances her PhD, “The Use of Autologous Adipose and Bone Marrow Derived Stem Cells in a Point of Care Goat Non-Instrumented Posterolateral Lumbar Spinal Fusion Model.”

Here is Neidre’s explanation of her dance.

In the PHYSICS category, Dan King dances his PhD, “Melt segregation and strain localization in deforming partially molten rocks.”

Here is King’s explanation of his dance.

In the SOCIAL SCIENCES category, Anne Goldenberg dances her PhD, “The negotiation of contributions to public wikis.”

Here is Goldenberg’s explanation of her dance.

In the CHEMISTRY category, Romas Kudirka dances his PhD, “Reactions Utilizing Palladium-Catalyzed Carbene Insertions.”

Here is Kudirka’s explanation of his dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Jillian Richmond dances her PhD, “Subversion of host immunity by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.”

Here is Richmond’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Michelle Williams dances her PhD, “CT coronary angiography: Application and clinical validation.”

Here is Williams’ explanation of her dance.

In the CHEMISTRY category, Christine Herman dances her PhD, “Generation of surface-immobilized biomolecular gradients for the investigation of leukocyte recruitment.”

Here is Herman’s explanation of her dance.

In the SOCIAL SCIENCES category, Keith Massey dances his PhD, “The Concord of Collective Nouns and Verbs in Biblical Hebrew: A Controlled Study.”

Here is Massey’s explanation of his dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Maartje Cathelijne de Jong dances her PhD, “The influence of previous experiences on visual awareness.”

Here is de Jong’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Annapoorna Kuppuswamy dances her PhD, “Cortical plasticity and functional change in human spinal cord injury investigated using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.”

Here is Kuppuswamy’s explanation of her dance.

In the SOCIAL SCIENCES category, Genevieve Metson dances her PhD, “The role of Urban Agriculture in promoting adaptive capacity of urban food systems to global phosphorus scarcity: Case studies of Phoenix, AZ and Accra, Ghana.”

Here is Metson’s explanation of her dance.

In the BIOLOGY category, Betsy Swanner dances her PhD, “A metabolically-versatile bacterium thrives in granitic rock of the deep subsurface.”

Here is Swanner’s explanation of her dance.

In the PHYSICS category, Wendy Crone dances “Experimental Investigation of the Deformation Near a Notch Tip in Metallic Single Crystals.”

Here is Crone’s explanation of her dance.

In the CHEMISTRY category, Anna Henderson does the Isotope Square Dance based on her Ph.D. thesis “Dual hydrogen and oxygen isotopic approach for tracking seasonal precipitation contributions and evaporative processes in modern systems and in paleoclimate reconstructions.”

Here is Henderson’s explanation of her dance.

In the PHYSICS category, Canadian physicist Krister Shalm dances “The Quantum Ruler: Using Quantum Mechanics to make better measurements.”

Here is Shalm’s explanation of his dance.

In the PHYSICS category, Australian physicist Steven Lade dances “Directed transport without net bias in physics and biology.”

Here is Lade’s explanation of his dance.

And until this page gets too crowded, here are some of the 2009 dances with critiques useful for all you Ph.D. dancers out there:

“Structural analysis of phosducin and its phosphorylation-regulated interaction with transducin beta-gamma” by Rachelle Gaudet
Pros: A great dance that is incredibly fun to watch. And it doesn’t seem so at first, but the different phases of the dance correspond (and explain) her protein’s various tricks.
Cons: Lighting, lighting, lighting. She used light/dark to make a point about the different states of her protein, but the end result is that it’s hard to see her. She should have used a different method, like maybe have people in unitards rush in from offstage and illuminate her with flashlights. That would have been funny.

“Resolving Pathways of Functional Coupling in Human Hemoglobin Using Quantitative Low Temperature Isoelectric Focusing of Asymmetric Mutant Hybrids” by Vince LiCata
Pros: Awesome choreography and performance. Vince and his grad students totally became the dance. Clever idea, well executed. Captures the essence of his Ph.D. research with a clever, well executed dance.
Cons: The lighting could be a little more dramatic. A couple of spotlights would have done the trick.

“Protein Cross-linked Hydrogels” by Aaron Esser-Kahn
Pros: Excellent editing. Lots of different perspectives. Good setting and a performance that kills.
Cons: He could give us more explanation. I now see it’s well explained in the text that goes with the video.  Nicely done!

“Tropospheric N2O isotopic composition: Instrumentation development and preliminary data for the constraint of the N2O global budget and stratospheric influence” by Kat Potter
Pros: A clever and simple idea. The position and movements of the dancers match the molecule she’s studying. And it was clearly fun to make, and that makes it fun to watch.
Cons: How about a bit more energy, guys! I wanted to see more expressiveness. A few close-ups on their faces would have helped. The scene is cluttered, and the back-lighting from the window isn’t great.

“Precipitation Initiation in Warm Clouds” by Jennifer D. Small
Pros: The idea is beautiful. The dancers are water molecules, coalescing into droplets and finally splatting on the ground. But we’re seeing it from above, so the back wall of the squash court is the ground.
Cons: Video quality is not the best. A tripod would have kept the shot steady. She also could have focused in a few times so we could get a close-up of the dancers and their interaction.