Australian Scientist Wins 'Dance Your Ph.D' Contest

SCIENCE -- October 17, 2012 at 4:50 PM EDT

Australian Scientist Wins 'Dance Your Ph.D' Contest

A new "Dance Your PhD" contest winner has been announced, and it involves juggling, shuffling bodies and burlesque-style dancing behind rainbow-colored umbrellas.

This year's winner is Peter Liddicoat, a materials scientist at the University of Sydney in Australia. His thesis -- the inspiration for his dance -- is called "Evolution of nanostructural architecture in 7000 series aluminium alloys during strengthening by age-hardening and severe plastic deformation."

The contest was conceived by molecular biologist-turned-science journalist John Bohannon five years ago as a way to encourage scientists to communicate more fluently and playfully about their PhD research. (See the story we did on the contest last year.)

The years since have seen an outpouring of submissions -- proof again that scientists are a goofy and creative tribe. Past contest winners pared the 36 dances submitted down to 12 finalists, which were scored by a panel of judges that included scientists, educators, and dancers, Bohannon writes. More on the contest here.

Beginning October 24, 2012, PBS NewsHour will allow open commenting for all registered users. We hope that the elimination of our moderation process will enable a more organic discussion amongst you, our audience. However, if a commenter violates our terms of use or abuses the commenting forum, their comment will be removed. We reserve the right to remove posts that do not follow these basic guidelines: comments must be relevant to the topic of the post; may not include profanity, personal attacks or hate speech; may not promote a business or raise money; may not be spam. Anything you post should be your own work. The PBS NewsHour reserves the right to read on the air and/or publish on its website or in any medium now known or unknown the comments or emails that we receive. By submitting comments, you agree to the PBS Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which include more details.