The DeRosa lab from Carleton University won the dance your Ph.D. contest!! Why do I care? I helped make the video, of course.
Some of the girls in my boyfriend’s lab found out about this contest in which grad students from around the globe attempt to interpret their scientific research through dance.
Gonzolabs, the site that puts on the contest, explains it like this:
“The dreaded question. “So, what’s your Ph.D. research about?” You take a deep breath and launch into the explanation. People’s eyes begin to glaze over…
At times like these, don’t you wish you could just turn to the nearest computer and show people an online video of your Ph.D. thesis interpreted in dance form?
Now you can. And while you’re at it, you can win $1000, achieve immortal geek fame on the Internet, and be recognized by Science for your effort.
How to enter:
1) Turn your Ph.D. thesis into a dance.
2) Get the dance on video.
3) Put the video online.”
So, of course, as a favour to the lab, I offered up our mad filmmaking skills in exchange for pizza, to help them dance their Ph.D.
I have to say that the girls were significantly more into the dancing at the get go...
Girls, working hard
Guys....taking a "well deserved" break?...but the guys came around eventually and everyone did a great job.
The final result looks something like this.
I have to say that my dreams as a filmmaker never really encompassed using Lady Gaga to explain SELEX, but hey, you take what you can get.
Surprisingly (or maybe not..?) the video became insanely popular. They won the chemistry category of the competition and the video was immediately scooped up by blogs all over the world. It now has 64, 000 views on Vimeo.
And last night, they won the entire competition, and the video was screened at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this.
Other than science is awesome.
Especially when set to pop music.
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