The Laborastory

Tom Lang is a science communicator and comedian. By day he teaches little kids about the wonders of the universe, by night he tells off-colour jokes in comedy rooms around Melbourne. Sometimes he mixes up the two and everyone learns more than they expected. He tells the story of American mechanical engineer and chemist Thomas Midgley.

A/Prof David Beattie is a chemist, working at the newly established Future Industries Institute at the University of South Australia. He spends his time trying to juggle the demands of curiosity-driven research and industry-engaged research. He tells the story of Scottish chemist William Ramsay.

Prof Ian Wanless is a future former Future Fellow in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Monash University. His area of research is combinatorics, including the art of counting when you run out of fingers and toes. He tells the story of Leonhard Euler, one of the greatest mathematicians to have ever lived.

Sean M Elliott is a writer and presenter who has worked for over a decade in science communication, working with groups such as the CSIRO, Museum Victoria, and University of Melbourne. With his business "Rough Science", Sean presents science programs for school students, including holiday programs where he teaches kids how to make computer games. He tells the story of Irish astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Dr Anthony Mays has had various careers over the years --- from the mind-numbing drudgery of factory work at Sunicrust, to the hospitalizing excitement of a stuntman on TV and in movies. His most recent attempt in staving-off hunger is as a mathematical physicist at the University of Melbourne. He tells the story of Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet.

Dr Mark Gregory recently completed his PhD in the field of chemistry at the University of Melbourne. When he is not mixing chemicals in the lab he is running Laneway Learning, playing rugby and organising weekends away to somewhere he has never been before. He praises the unsung heroes of research, all of them.

Molly Clemens is a graduate of Fordham University in Manhattan with a degree in Environmental Science. She came to Melbourne on a Fulbright Postgraduate Research grant to study the Trigger plant and its genetic response to climate change. She tells the story of the american biologist Edward Osborne Wilson.

Dr Michael Wheeler is a mathematical physicist at the University of Melbourne. He’s interested in any kind of mathematics that can be done using drawings. He tells the story of Richard Feynman.

Ben Vezina is a molecular and microbiology PhD student at Monash University and CSIRO. He studies chicken bacteria and how to kill them. He tells the story of Nicolas Steno.

Dr Emily Petroff is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University. She studies extreme objects in both our own Galaxy and galaxies halfway across the universe. She tells the story of her hero scientist Jacques Monod.