The 2009 AAAS/Science Dance Contest

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT * * WINNER * *

Name: Sue Lynn Lau

PhD Title: "The role of vitamin D in beta cell function"

PhD Institution: Garvan Institute of Medical Research / University of Sydney, Australia

Date: 2010 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, Garvan Institute of Medical Research / University of Sydney, Australia

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POST-DOC * * WINNER * *

Name: Miriam Sach

PhD Title: "Cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs with positron emission tomography. A comparison between single subject and group analysis"

PhD Institution: University of Duesseldorf, Germany

Date: 2004

Current affiliation: Post-doctoral researcher, University of California, San Diego

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: PROFESSOR * * WINNER * *

Name: Vince LiCata

PhD Title: "Resolving Pathways of Functional Coupling in Human Hemoglobin Using Quantitative Low Temperature Isoelectric Focusing of Asymmetric Mutant Hybrids"

PhD Institution: Johns Hopkins University

Date: 1990

Current affiliation: Lewis S. Flowers Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POPULAR CHOICE * * WINNER * * (with 14,138 views by the deadline)

Name: Markita Landry

PhD Title: "Single Molecule Measurements of Protelomerase TelK-DNA Complexes"

PhD Institution: University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Date: 2011 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Here are the runners-up:

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT * * RUNNER-UP * *

Name: Christin Murphy

PhD Title: "Hydrodynamic Trail Detection in Marine Organisms"

PhD Institution: University of South Florida College of Marine Science

Date: 2012 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, University of South Florida College of Marine Science

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POST-DOC * * RUNNER-UP * *

Name: Kiki Jenkins

PhD Title: "The invention and adoption of marine conservation technologies to successfully reduce bycatch of protected marine species"

PhD Institution: Duke University

Date: 2006

Current affiliation: AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow, NOAA Fisheries

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: PROFESSOR * * RUNNER-UP * *

Name: Barbara Allen

PhD Title: "Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor Disputes"

PhD Institution: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Date: 1999

Current affiliation: Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Science and Technology Studies, Department of Science and Technology in Society, Virginia Tech (Washington DC area campus)

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

And the rest of this worthy field:

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Danielle N. Lee

PhD Title: "Individual Differences in Exploratory Behavior of Prairie Voles, Microtus ochrogaster"

PhD Institution: University of Missouri St. Louis

Date: 2009 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, University of Missouri St. Louis

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Kyle Gustafson

PhD Title: "Understanding turbulence to use magnetically confined fusion"

PhD Institution: University of Maryland, College Park

Date: 2009 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, University of Maryland, College Park

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: PROFESSOR

Name: John Holzrichter

PhD Title: "Photo-magnetization in the Anti-ferromagnetic Mnf2"

PhD Institution: Stanford University

Date: 1971

Current affiliation: President, Hertz Foundation

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Monika Schleier-Smith

PhD Title: "Generating Entanglement in a Cold Atomic Ensemble via Atom-Light Interaction in an Optical Resonator"

PhD Institution: MIT

Date: 2010 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, MIT

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Erez Lieberman

PhD Title: "Chromosome Conformation Capture and the Mathematics of Evolution"

PhD Institution: Broad Institute, MIT/Harvard

Date: 2009 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, Broad Institute, MIT/Harvard

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Anna Bershteyn

PhD Title: "Lipid-coated nanoparticles as synthetic pathogens for design of vaccines"

PhD Institution: MIT

Date: 2010 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, MIT

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: PROFESSOR

Name: Adam J. Burgasser

PhD Title: "The Discovery and Characterization of Methane-bearing Brown Dwarfs and the Definition of the T Spectral Class"

PhD Institution: Caltech

Date: 2001

Current affiliation: Assistant Professor of Astrophysics, MIT

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Erica Howard

PhD Title: "The Effects of Climatic Variability and Land Cover Change on Aquatic Ecosystems, Carbon Cycling, and Ecosystem Services of the Amazon River Basin"

PhD Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Date: 2009 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: Assistant Professor of Science, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA; PhD Candidate (Dissertator), University of Wisconsin-Madison

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POST-DOC

Name: Jessica Phillips-Silver

PhD Title: "Multisensory processing of metrical structure in music: Movement influences adults' and infants' auditory perception"

PhD Institution: McMaster University

Date: 2007

Current affiliation: post-doctoral researcher, International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS)

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: PROFESSOR

Name: Sommer Gentry

PhD Title: "Dancing Cheek to Cheek: Haptic communication between partner dancers and swing as a finite state machine"

PhD Institution: MIT

Date: 2005

Current affiliation: Assistant Professor, Mathematics, U.S. Naval Academy

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POST-DOC

Name: Clarissa Anderson

PhD Title: "Environmental Controls of Phytoplankton Community Structure in the Santa Barbara Channel, CA: Application to the Dynamics and Detection of Harmful Diatom Blooms"

PhD Institution: University of California, Santa Barbara

Date: 2007

Current affiliation: Post-doctoral researcher, University of California, Santa Cruz

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Aaron Esser-Kahn

PhD Title: "Protein Cross-linked Hydrogels"

PhD Institution: University of California, Berkeley

Date: 2009 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, University of California, Berkeley

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POST-DOC

Name: Josh Fisher

PhD Title: "I. The land-atmosphere water flux across plant, ecosystem, global and social scales. II. GIS and spatial analysis for environmental justice and wildlife"

PhD Institution: University of California, Berkeley

Date: 2006

Current affiliation: post-doctoral research fellow, Oxford University

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Renee Cockerham

PhD Title: "Characterization of an Olfactory Subsystem"

PhD Institution: University of Maryland, Baltimore

Date: 2008 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, University of Maryland, Baltimore

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Sophie Lewis

PhD Title: "Stalagmite reconstructions of late Quaternary palaemonsoon dynamics from Flores, Indonesia"

PhD Institution: Australian National University

Date: 2010 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, Australian National University

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: PROFESSOR

Name: Irwin L. Singer

PhD Title: "Generation and Detection of High-Energy Phonons by Superconducting Junctions"

PhD Institution: Indiana University

Date: 1976

Current affiliation: Head of tribology research, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington D.C.

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Jennifer Shieh

PhD Title: "Adhesion and Endocytosis in Neuronal Migration"

PhD Institution: Stanford University

Date: 2009 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, Stanford University

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POST-DOC

Name: Heather-Marie P. Wilson

PhD Title: "The role of an insulin-like growth factor binding protein in breast cancer"

PhD Institution: University of Washington

Date: 2002

Current affiliation: Post-doctoral researcher, University of Washington

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POST-DOC

Name: Lidia Prieto

PhD Title: "Topology-based potentials for the study of the protein folding and aggregation transitions"

PhD Institution: Complutense University of Madrid, Spain

Date: March 2008

Current affiliation: Post-doctoral researcher, City College of New York

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POST-DOC

Name: Sharada Srinivasan

PhD Title: "Archaeometallurgical and Art Historical Investigations on South Indian Metal Icons"

PhD Institution: University College London, Institute of Archaeology

Date: 1996

Current affiliation: Faculty Fellow, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: PROFESSOR

Name: Rachelle Gaudet

PhD Title: "Structural analysis of phosducin and its phosphorylation-regulated interaction with transducin beta-gamma"

PhD Institution: Yale University

Date: 1998

Current affiliation: Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Tara S. Baney

PhD Title: "Examining the behavior of RluA and TruB towards tRNA containing 2'-deoxy-2'-fluorouridine or 2'-deoxyuridine"

PhD Institution: University of Delaware

Date: 2009 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, University of Delaware

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Kat Potter

PhD Title: "Tropospheric N2O isotopic composition: Instrumentation development and preliminary data for the constraint of the N2O global budget and stratospheric influence"

PhD Institution: MIT

Date: 2010 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, MIT

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Jolene Chang

PhD Title: "The Mechanism of Agrin's Function in Interneuronal Synaptogenesis"

PhD Institution: University of California at Davis

Date: 2011 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, University of California at Davis

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Lara Park

PhD Title: "The role of folate in epigenetic regulation of colon carcinogenesis"

PhD Institution: Tufts University

Date: 2012 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, Tufts University

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Bonnie Barrilleaux

PhD Title: "Small-Molecule Antagonist of an Inflammatory Cytokine Enhances Migration of Mesenchymal Stem Cells"

PhD Institution: Tulane University

Date: 2009 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, Tulane University

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: POST-DOC

Name: Wendy Grus

PhD Title: "Evolution of the vomeronasal system viewed through system-specific genes"

PhD Institution: University of Michigan

Date: April 2008

Current affiliation: post-doctoral resarcher, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.

Category: GRADUATE STUDENT

Name: Jennifer D. Small

PhD Title: "Precipitation Initiation in Warm Clouds"

PhD Institution: University of California Santa Cruz

Date: 2009 (expected completion)

Current affiliation: graduate student, University of California Santa Cruz

For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)" to the right of the video HERE.