University of Wisconsin’s Ambalika Khadria dances to her Ph.D. thesis.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: An unusual competition that asks Ph.D. candidates from around the world to interpret their research into a dance routine has selected its five winners for this year, among which one is an Indian American student from the Midwest.
Ambalika “Rika†Khadria is a biochemistry Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, WI. She entered the “Dance Your Ph.D.†competition, which asks students to try and convey the basics of their research through some form of dance. The competition is also open to those who already have a Ph.D.
For her submission, Khadria and her friends created a video in which they show how proteins get paired together in the body. The creative dance, entitled “The ‘FRETting’ tendency of the bacterial protein!†uses black costumes with silver ribbons wrapped around them and colorful masks to help explain a somewhat difficult concept to those who may not be familiar with the biology behind it. They also dance to a song called “Raga’s Dance,” an AR Rahman composition which features Singaporean-British violin maestro Vanessa Mae.
Khadria and her team did not win the top prize, however. That honor went to a biology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oxford, who did a routine called “Sperm Competition Between Brothers and Female Choice.†The video’s creator, Cedrick Tan, will receive $1,000 and a trip to Stanford University, where his video will be screened.
She and her team did end up walking away with the prize for Chemistry, which nets her a cool $500. Three other prizes were given out: one for physics that went to a student at Wolf Star Technologies in Milwaukee, one for social sciences that went to a student at Stockholm University in Sweden, and one that was a “reader favorite,†meaning users who went to the competition’s website voted for this one the most, that went to a student at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg.
The contest is sponsored by Science Magazine, which is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Each video submission is required to be accompanied by a written explanation of the Ph.D. concept being conveyed in the dance, some of which are quite lengthy.
Khadria’s video can be viewed below. More information about “Dance Your Ph.D.†– as well as a look at the videos of previous winners, which includes one by an Indian American social sciences student named Jaswani Pitale – can be found on their website.
The ‘FRETting’ tendency of the bacterial protein! from Ambalika Khadria on Vimeo.
[Photo courtesy of University of Wisconsin.]
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com