The Laborastory

Dr. Freda Werdiger will never know enough about optics. She was awarded a Ph.D in 2016 for her work in Classical Field theory with the School of Physics at Monash University. Because no one will pay her to find exact solutions to irrelevant things, she is currently on loan to the Adelaide Women's and Children's Hospital and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Monash University to analyse flow patterns in fibrotic lungs using x-ray imaging. She can intubate a 20 gram mouse.

Matthew is in the final throes of a PhD investigating the effects of a processed diet on gut homeostasis and the impact this has on diabetic kidney disease. He has presented his findings at a number of international conferences, each in a location more exotic then the last: Tokyo, Lisbon, Perth.

Earlier this year he was a Victorian Finalist in Famelab, a global science communication competition. He has written for The Conversation and has run science classes during National Science Week and Melbourne Knowledge Week

Dr Rowan Brookes is the Director of Education in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University. Rowan has over a decade of experience in teaching and leading educational change initiatives in higher education and the not-for-profit sector. Her absolute love is the creation of whole-hearted education programs for science students. She sits on the Women’s Advisory Roundtable for the Minister for Jobs and Innovation and is the co-lead on the Women in STEM side-by-side program. Rowan is an endurance athlete with her most recent event being the completion of the 243km Coast to Coast race in New Zealand. She's also the mum of three ridiculously awesome children.

Gretchen is an astrogeologist who studies meteorites to reveal the secrets of the evolution of the solar system. She’s always been a fan of the stars and space from the time her mother pointed out that there was a person on the moon (the first moon landing) when she was just one year old.

Dr Sarah Marley recently completed her PhD in dolphin acoustics at Curtin University. Originally from Scotland, she grew up chasing squirrels and watching dolphins before embarking on her zoology career, and has now been studying marine mammals in Australia for seven years. Tonight she will be discussing two of the leading influences on her animal-obsessed life.

Josh Richards is a physicist, comedian, and former soldier. He’s trying to add astronaut to that list at the moment too, as one of a 100 people short-listed worldwide to colonise Mars in 2031 with the Mars One project.

Rocky is a planetarium presenter and freelance science writer. He has a linguistics degree, which is exactly as useful as it sounds. He’s just finished a Masters thesis on whether or not astronauts should name their space plants, and he owns more novelty t-shirts than he knows what to do with.

Dr Aaron Cavosie is an illustrious scientist who has worked in astrobiology, geochemistry and a whole lot of other things that light up a resume as long as your arm. Currently he is a planetary scientist at Curtin University. He often says he would like to find intelligent life somewhere out there in space, but to be honest, he would also be quite content if someone could find it down here first.

Lisa is in the final year of her PhD in obstetrics & gynaecology at UWA. She loves nothing more than yammering on about science to her partner, her friends, her students, and, really, anyone else who will listen.

Arjun Chahal is a PhD candidate/cancer geneticist (take your pick) at the University of Melbourne. His research utilizes the fruit fly to understand the fundamentals of tissue growth and how disruptions to these processes can lead to diseases like cancer. When he isn’t getting beaten up for his lunch money or looking for his inhaler, you can usually find him watching the Mighty Geelong Cats or grooming his beard while claiming that “it just grows like that”. He currently has an Impact Factor of -1.