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Science Magazine’s Annual Dance Your Ph.D. Contest Science effectively wipes the (dance) floor with all your prejudices about introverted scientists. This year, dancing chemists elegantly waving yellow fans representing electrons won.
Every year, doctoral students and researchers who have just obtained their doctorate post on YouTube amateur but crazy videos in which they stage their scientific research in dance.
Take the winner of the fifteenth episode that was just announced: nanoMOFin which chemist Marshall ladies and University of Oregon colleagues in lab coats dance, elegantly waving yellow fans that represent electrons. They stand in front of a molecular model of papier-mâché balloons, all accompanied by a grumpy rap (‘Metal Organic Frameworks is the name, various materials with so much potential…’).
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They’re trying to explain something about metal organoframeworks (MOFs), a certain type of chemical compound that may one day be useful in new, efficient and often rechargeable batteries. Understandable for everyone? Well no, organometallic chemistry is one of those fields which, like 90% of scientific research, rarely makes the headlines: it cannot be explained without a long technical introduction, and practical applications are still far behind. ‘horizon.
The layman who watches scientists dance in the hope of understanding something more will therefore be disappointed (“mixed valence is a unique property, phase two of iron coexists with iron plus three”). But none of that matters as enthusiasm, eccentricity and a willingness not to take themselves too seriously splash across the screen.
four months of work
Still, a Dance Your PhD video takes a long time, says Ivo Neefjes2020 contest winner with video molecular clusters, on climate research at the University of Helsinki on the formation of particles in the atmosphere. The video, shot largely on the university rooftop, shows Neefjes and his colleagues Jakub Kubečka and Vitus Besel in macho rap choreography made all the more ridiculous by the white shirts with black ties and black masks.
“We filmed in the fall, it was around zero degrees Celsius. We had misjudged that a bit,” says Neefjes. But there was little choice: “It was in the middle of covid, so almost nothing was allowed.
His Czech colleague came up with the idea, Besel had experience with music and audio, and Neefjes, who had already attended film school, was the film expert. “People have no idea how much time and preparation it takes to film, even if it’s a hobby project.” They spent four months working on it (in addition to their research). “We worked within the deadlines.”
Attention
But winning the prize made up for it a lot. In addition to the $2000 prize pool, it is generating a lot of attention. The video is still the most-watched Dance Your Ph.D. video, with 244,000 views. Neefjes: “We didn’t expect that at all, we just wanted to make a funny movie.”
The final verse, which pokes fun at the ambitious, performance-oriented science culture, garnered a lot of recognition. “I’m the first author, and you’re fair et al.” ‘Et al‘, a Latin abbreviation for ‘and others’, is often used to abbreviate long lists of names of authors of scientific papers.
‘It has helped me in my scientific career ever since,’ says Neefjes, ‘we are always asked to talk about science communication at conferences, and I think that is also very important’.
sensual tango
After the victory, Neefjes is also a member of the jury himself, so he also judged this year’s entries. “There are always a lot of variations: sometimes the emphasis is on the music, sometimes on the video and sometimes on the dance. For example, a team of smooth dancers from the University of Manaus in Brazil describe the biochemistry of Amazonian trees in a collective bossa nova dance number, and in the Proton Tango graduates of the Technical University of Lausanne, sensual and experienced tango dancers perform protons in boron nitride.
Nerd? Of course. At the start of this section, we claimed that dance researchers have undermined prejudice, but that dance videos in all their weirdness express a passion for science, there’s no denying that. Dance your doctorate. is a lavish celebration of all things corny.
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