The Laborastory

Dr Marion Anderson is the Director of First Year Studies in the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash University. When not cramming knowledge about the Earth and its wonders into the skulls of her students, she finds time to write horror role playing games and make jewellery.

Noon Silk is a programmer and maths student. When left alone for long periods of time he will often tend towards trying to program Haskell, much to his detriment. He tells the story of mathematician, cryptologist and programmer Daniel J. Bernstein.

Kate Cranney is a Master of Science student and a fledgling artist. Kate grew up on an isolated property in western Queensland, studied environmental law and recently moved to Melbourne from the Torres Strait Islands. She tells the story of Harriet and Helena Scott, the Bronte sisters of botany.

Dave Gonsalvez is a postdoc at the Melbourne Brain Centre in the a division of the Melbourne Neuroscience Institute. He tells the story of Mondino de Liuzzi, the “restorer of anatomy”.

Neil MacDonald is an anaesthetic fellow at the Alfred Hospital. He tells the story of the pioneer of spinal anaesthesia, August Bier.

Prasanna Sritharan is a PhD student in biomechanical engineering at the University of Melbourne studying the relationship between musculoskeletal biomechanics and knee osteoarthritis. He tells the story of the English photographer Eadweard Muybridge.

Tom is a science communicator and comedian whose most recent show “Love Factually” introduced reproductive evolution to unsuspecting audiences at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. He tells the story of the English scientist, Michael Faraday.

Ben McKenzie is a writer/performer whose solo work has always had a scientific flavour. He tells the story of Hedy Lamar, the Austrian actress who developed the ideas at the base of Bluetooth technology and WiFi networks.

Gil Rind is an American who’s been living in Melbourne for the past four and a half years, with a degree in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering. He tells the story of Thomas Midgley, a men whose negative environmental impact exceeds the one of every other single organism in history.

Associate Professor Natalie Sims runs the Bone Cell Biology and Disease Unit at St. Vincent's Institute, where she works on understanding communication pathways of the cells within the skeleton and how they change bone structure. She tells the story of her science hero, British surgeon John Belchier.