The Laborastory

Nicholas J. Johnson is an author, a magician and collector of scams. He exposes tricks and inspires audiences to think critically and never be swindled again. After two decades entertaining and educating audiences, He’s realised there is much we can learn about persuasion, deception and influence from the world of the professional swindler.

Just don’t trust him with a deck of cards.

Tomas is neurologist and a biostatistician. He is based at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and University of Melbourne. His scientific passion is observational data, databases and statistics applied to clinically relevant problems. He has founded a Clinical Outcomes Research Unit, whose purpose is to bring neurology and statistics together. Tomas is a fan of baroque and as a teenager, had a poster of Bach above his bed.

Rangi De Silva is Melbourne-based doctor who is currently training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Victoria. A self-confessed science and comic book-nerd, she started her university studies with a degree in Science and then finally decided she liked people even more so she went on to study graduate Medicine. Being passionate about global health, she's worked in Uganda, Sri Lanka and remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory and is looking forward to a volunteer placement in the Asia Pacific next year before she becomes an even bigger nerd and starts her PhD. Until recently she was also Director of Programs at Global Ideas, a Melbourne based global health education and leadership organisation and is also a member of the World Economic Forum Melbourne Global Shaper Hub. In her spare time, she's a big fan of animated movies, assorted crafts, travel and can often be seen with a camera in hand.

Associate Professor 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.

Tim Young is an astrophysicist, and passionate science communicator. In his spare time he runs podcasts focused on science and gaming respectively. He is also an adventurous rock climber.

Professor Lyn Beazley is one of Western Australia’s leading scientists and science communicators. She is the former Chief Scientist of Western Australia, who also has a history in founding Dolphin Watch.

At 10 years of age, Mark Harvey wrote to the Serengeti National Park to ask for a job, which says something about the career that was to follow. Dr Mark Harvey is the Senior Curator of Arachnology (or man who is in charge of creepy crawlies) at the WA Museum. His major passion is in the study of pseudoscorpions.

Hannah is a scientist with a not-so-secret past life in the fashion and arts industry. Now she's doing a PhD in ecology, researching how really severe fires affect our WA ecosystems - focusing on a small and threatened population of mainland quokkas.

Dr Emma Moloney is a Consultant Anaesthetist based in Melbourne. She completed medical school in Brisbane and went on to specialise in Anaesthesia. She moved to Melbourne to complete a fellowship in Trauma Anaesthesia, and 4 years later is still here.

A physiologist at heart, Emma loves doing all sorts of surgeries where she can use different drugs to tinker with people’s physiology. She has recently returned from a stint in London, where she both worked and travelled hard. When not listening to someone else’s heart beat all day long, Emma likes to escape away to climb mountains either hiking or cycling, where the only thing she can hear is her own heartbeat.

Part time scientist, part time climate activis, Nathan is currently working in atmospheric modelling and data assimilation at The Bureau of Meteorology.

Over the winter he was personally the third highest user of Australia's largest supercomputer at the the National Computational Infrastructure Centre in Canberra

He is also a volunteer facilitator at Climate for Change. Trying to change the conversation around climate change, one DNM at a time.

At a previous job he worked as a travelling planetarium narrator, which admittedly, is the best job he’ll ever have.